County Report on Light-Rail Route Criticized : Transportation: The City Council and a community group say a plan to use a right-of-way fails to consider residents’ concerns and alternatives.

Members of the Culver City Council and a community group lashed out at a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission on Monday, saying it failed to consider residential concerns and alternative routes for a light rail line through Culver City.

The council had asked Steve Lantz from the commission to brief it on an initial study that outlines various plans for a public transit system to be built on the Exposition Boulevard right-of-way, which runs from Santa Monica to Exposition Park near the Los Angeles Coliseum.

The route is part of 175 miles of railroad right-of-way the commission purchased from Southern Pacific for $450 million in 1990.

The study takes a preliminary look at using the right-of-way for a light rail or a trolley bus system. The City of Santa Monica has come out strongly in favor of a light-rail system for the 12.2-mile route.

Councilman Steven Gourley blasted the report and railed at Lantz, the commission’s Westside-area team director, because the study considered alternate routes around the communities of Cheviot Hills and Rancho Park but not in Culver City.

“You quivered like towers of jelly because (Los Angeles Councilman) Zev Yaroslavsky pushed you around,” Gourley told Lantz.

Backed by Yaroslavsky, several Los Angeles homeowner groups fought the purchase of the right-of-way for more than two years, arguing that a light-rail plan would ruin their neighborhoods with traffic and noise.

Yaroslavsky said last September that he favored rerouting the line via Venice and Sepulveda boulevards to avoid the Rancho Park-Cheviot Hills area.

Gourley and Vice Mayor Mike Balkman reacted strongly to the preliminary study, saying it ignored the concerns of Culver City residents about the impact of noise and traffic of a light-rail line or other mass transit system on their east Culver City neighborhood.

The right-of-way crosses over Venice Boulevard on Exposition Boulevard and continues across Washington Boulevard into Culver City. The route runs down the middle of National Boulevard as far as La Ballona Creek and then enters Los Angeles.

The Culver City neighborhood that would be affected lies on the outskirts on McManus Park and is roughly bounded by Washington, National and La Cienega boulevards.

Lantz countered Balkman and Gourley’s statements, saying the commission’s staff meetings with Culver City residents had not produced any definitive alternative routes. He acknowledged, however, that no minutes of the community meetings were recorded.

Also unhappy with the commission’s report was a group of residents calling themselves the East Culver City Neighborhood Alliance.

Alliance spokeswoman Sandra Levin said that although their neighborhood is made up of largely single-family homes, the report refers to the area as a mix of industrial and multifamily dwellings. The study also does not address what impact a light-rail system would have on Echo-Horizon School, a private elementary school on McManus Avenue near McManus Park. Nor does the report address alternative routes for a rail system, she said.

Levin said she was deeply offended that the plan was rerouted around Cheviot Hills and Rancho Park while no such concessions were made to other communities such as theirs.

Lantz said the transportation agency is nowhere near completion of the plans. Only nine months have passed in a process that will take five to seven years to complete, he said. The next step will be a full Environmental Impact Review that will require more community meetings. The design of a transportation system and actual construction follow the EIR.

The environmental report will focus on key alternatives, Lantz said. “We would appreciate getting direction from the Culver City Council.”

Lantz said the commission has simply bought a right-of-way. “If the city has alternatives (to the right-of-way route), it should present them.”

The Culver City Council instructed city staff to send a letter to the commission expressing its displeasure over the handling of community input and to also send an outline of the concerns that should be studied in the EIR.

The commission next week is expected to authorize the preparation of an EIR to start in September.

Light-Rail Route

The Culver City Council and a community group say a preliminary study on using the Exposition Boulevard right-of-way for a light rail or trolly bus system failed to consider residential concerns and alternative routes.