Aviation Authorities Fear Hazard From Metro Line

Even as county transportation officials are soliciting bids from construction companies to build the Metro Green Line, aviation authorities are concerned that the automated light-rail line will pose a hazard to navigation as it skirts the east side of Los Angeles International Airport.

Fred O’Donnell of the Federal Aviation Administration said regulators fear that the train’s lights may distract pilots, that its electric-power system might disrupt electronic navigation aids and that its overhead wires, near the ends of two runways, could endanger low-flying aircraft in an emergency.

John L. Graham of the Los Angeles Department of Airports said that, if the line is built as designed, the FAA may restrict flights at the airport, the nation’s third-busiest. He said the city is ready, if necessary, to block the project by refusing to let trains operate on airport land.

Neil Peterson of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission said that consultants are studying the FAA’s concerns and looking for ways to solve any problems. The biggest difficulty so far, he added, has been poor communication between his agency and aviation officials.

“Obviously, we are not going to do anything that is not safe,” said Peterson, the county Transportation Commission’s executive director. “We’re fairly confident that there are technical solutions to each one of these problems. I don’t think any one of them is a show-stopper.”

O’Donnell said the FAA prefers that the automated trolley--the first driverless system in the nation--be built underground, as a subway, but Peterson said that would be too expensive. Other configurations--changing the electrification system or running trains at ground level--pose their own safety or technical problems.

The brewing confrontation between train and plane stems in part from the county Transportation Commission’s desire to deliver a countywide mass transit system quickly, as promised voters when they agreed in two elections to tax themselves heavily to buy one.

At present, the Green Line is scheduled to be built and running by November, 1994, making it the third leg of the Metro Rail system in operation.

“They’re so intent on meeting a schedule that they don’t always take the time to clear up the details,” said Graham, chief of aviation planning at LAX.

The Green Line will connect Norwalk and El Segundo, providing a mass transit alternative to the aviation and high-technology employment center around the airport while connecting to the year-old Blue Line, which runs between Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles.

For most of its 23 miles, the Green Line will operate in the median of Interstate 105, the soon-to-be-completed Glenn Anderson Freeway. At the western end of the freeway, the transit line will branch north and south, toward the airport and into El Segundo.

Graham said the city Department of Airports first expressed its concern over the automated light-rail line after voters in 1980 approved the first of two half-cent sales tax surcharges that are financing most of the county’s ambitious mass transit construction program.

“It was mentioned to them 10 years ago that they should clear it with FAA,” Graham said. “They didn’t.”

O’Donnell said the FAA first raised questions about the rail line in November, 1988. When specific system designs were revealed in a Draft Environmental Impact Report, federal aviation officials wrote a letter in May, 1990, stating specific conflicts that needed to be resolved. Another letter was sent to the county Transportation Commission last month.

On June 18, O’Donnell said, “they submitted a (final) plan to us and it didn’t address any of our concerns.”

The FAA has no authority to stop construction of the mass transit line, O’Donnell said, but it can, if necessary, take drastic action against the airport.

“If we determine the airport no longer can safely be operated, we can shut it down,” he said.

Graham said he does not think that will be necessary, but he said LAX is ready to defend its interests by refusing to let the county build the part of train line on airport property along Aviation and Century boulevards and through its Parking Lot C.

“We are not going to withhold anything capriciously,” he said, “but we won’t grant them (the county Transportation Commission) any right of way if it (the Green Line) interferes with (airport) passenger safety or convenience.”

“That’s obviously not an option” for the Transportation Commission, said Peterson, whose agency already has opened bidding on construction contracts for the Green Line.

“We will deal with this before it comes to that.”

Peterson stressed that, “the FAA and DOA have legitimate concerns and we’re trying to work them out,” but said the main controversy stems not from the technical problems themselves but from his agency’s slow response to the other agencies’ concern about the technical problems.

“There probably was a lapse over the last year-and-a-half in communications, and that was probably our fault,” he said.

Transportation Conflict

Federal and local aviation officials say that an elevated mass-transit line being built in Westchester will endanger planes landing and taking off at Los Angeles International Airport. County transit planners won’t redesign the system, so aviation officials may try to block it.

Problems are especially acute at the end of the airport’s four runways. Airport authorities say the 15- to 18-foot-high rail line may distract pilots with its lights, befuddle radar with electromagnetic emissions and stand in the way of low-flying aircraft in emergencies.