Pedestrian Tunnels Under Freeway Closing to Curb Crime

Sepulveda residents living along the San Diego Freeway expressed relief Thursday that city crews will begin boarding up four pedestrian tunnels that the residents say provide “easy access, easy exit” to criminals and vandals.

“It’s the best news I’ve had all week,” said Mae Coleman, who lives two houses away from a pedestrian tunnel on Rayen Street. Coleman and many of her neighbors attribute neighborhood problems such as crime and vandalism to the dark, dank tunnel that cuts under the San Diego Freeway at the end of her street.

After several years of community complaints, the Los Angeles Board of Public Works on Wednesday agreed to temporarily close tunnels at Chase, Rayen, Tupper and Superior streets with plywood. Work is scheduled to begin Tuesday. City officials said the much more expensive procedure of closing the tunnels permanently will be done later.

Residents and police say the tunnels, built to provide a way to cross the busy freeway, are frequented by drug dealers, transients and thieves. Police said people occasionally are accosted in the tunnels, which often are covered with graffiti and reek of urine.

The tunnels provide “easy access, easy exit” for criminals, Coleman said.

“We prefer them being blocked off,” said police Sgt. J.W. Thompson.

The four Sepulveda closures are the first in a new city program created in response to the increasing number of requests for tunnel closures.

Of the 219 pedestrian tunnels in Los Angeles, 44 have been closed in the last 30 years. Seven more, including two in the San Fernando Valley, are in various stages of being closed permanently. That process, which involves filling the tunnels with sand and bricking over the entrances, can cost $55,000, City Engineer Robert Horii said.

Horii said the four tunnels in Sepulveda are scheduled to be closed permanently during the 1990-91 fiscal year, which begins July 1. In the meantime, the entrances to the tunnels will be blocked by plywood. Plywood barriers cost between $500 and $1,000, said Dave Reed, assistant director of the Los Angeles Bureau of Street Maintenance.

“It won’t stop them,” Coleman said of the plywood’s effectiveness against thieves and vandals. “But I’ll take it for the moment.”