RTD Grappling With Metro Rail Route Decisions

Do you wipe out a 45-year-old Hollywood religious temple, or do you tear down an important surgical hospital that, among others things, houses AIDS patients?

As two hours of testimony at a public hearing Friday showed, the choices aren’t getting any easier as RTD officials move toward final decisions on laying out the route of the $3.8-billion Metro Rail system. A 4.4-mile subway section is now being built under downtown Los Angeles. A second leg to be built in the next 10 years would run from MacArthur Park through Hollywood, including a controversial elevated section down the center of Sunset Boulevard.

Until recently, it appeared that the tentatively adopted route would bring Metro Rail trains right through the Self-Realization Fellowship Hollywood Center, an ornate place of spiritual meditation founded in 1942 by Paramahansa Yogananda. But church leaders appealed to RTD and city officials, including Hollywood Councilman Michael Woo, and a route adjustment was drafted.

“These are sacred buildings to us,” said Charles Woll, a spokesman for the church.

But now officials at Kaiser Permanente’s Los Angeles Medical Center a block away say the latest proposal would require demolition of one of their crucially needed buildings, which house a surgical center, hospice services and AIDS patients.

Officials from the hospital and the church on Friday joined representatives of Sunset Boulevard recording and broadcast studios in voicing strong concerns about the potential disruption the mass transit system’s construction and operation will have on their facilities. Also at the meeting and opposing any further consideration of a separate, elevated Metro Rail leg on Wilshire Boulevard were homeowner groups and business representatives from that area.

No action was taken Friday, and RTD General Manager John Dyer said the transit district will evaluate the comments and possibly recommend changes in the project. Dyer said engineers can probably find a route that will not harm either the church or the hospital. “Whether it will be the best route, I don’t know,” he said.

After the hearing, RTD board member Marv Holen, who is leading the board’s effort to settle on a Metro Rail extension route, said, “Nobody I know is comfortable with the (elevated) option anywhere in Los Angeles.”

The major issue has been possible noise and vibration effects that Metro Rail construction and operations could have on Sunset Boulevard’s so-called “electronic mile”--a heavy concentration of recording and broadcast studios between Western Avenue and Vine Street.

An independent panel of experts was named by Woo and Mayor Tom Bradley to evaluate the studios’ concerns. That panel reported last month that disruption would be severe during construction, but the studios could function normally afterward if the elevated trains are carefully designed and maintained.

The studios have criticized those findings, citing reports by their own noise experts.

“This is the most (sound) sensitive route in the country,” said Richard J. Anderson, vice president of Fox Television, which operates KTTV on Sunset. “I can’t imagine anyone arguing this is going to enhance our property values.”

A decision must be made by early next year on the second leg of Metro Rail if the district is to receive federal construction funds for the second phase. The high costs of tunneling, coupled with environmental disputes associated with underground methane gas, have forced the RTD to consider building large segments of elevated track.

Several representatives from Hollywood on Friday urged the RTD to build a subway through the community--most suggested under Hollywood Boulevard. But that might be politically impossible.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, a key funding partner in the Metro Rail project, had pushed for less expensive elevated construction. The higher subway costs would mean less could be built. Additionally, the system would be further delayed in reaching the San Fernando Valley, where state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) and other powerful political figures have been pressing for work to begin on their share of the project.