Harbor Freeway Jam

I was surprised and disappointed that your usual high journalistic standards of fairness and balance were not observed in the Feb. 4 article “Watt Project Linked to Replacement Housing” concerning the 62-story skyscraper to be built on the west side of the Harbor Freeway at 8th Street.

The article described this project in the most benign terms, suggesting that nothing but good--jobs, day-care and low-income housing--will come from it.

The city Department of Transportation has concluded that when the area’s 64 buildings, nearly completed, under construction or in an advanced planning stage are finished, the Harbor Freeway will be so overwhelmed that eight additional lanes would be required to handle the inevitable traffic.

The drawing you used to illustrate the project was both ironic and inaccurate. It showed the massive project adjacent to a near-empty Harbor Freeway.

The truth--which readers of your article would never have gleaned--is that the project will make the existing Harbor Freeway a parking lot and paralyze the movement of traffic in the downtown area.

MARVIN BRAUDE

City Councilman

Los Angeles