LOS ANGELES : Westside Group Seeks to Halt Red Line Project
Several Westside residents, led by environmentalist Dorothy Green and developer James Watt McCormick, have gone to court seeking to prevent further planning or construction of a Metro Red Line subway extension to the Mid-City district.
In a petition filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Green and McCormick requested a court order to block additional work on the project by asserting that the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission failed to faithfully consider alternative routes, as required by law.
In particular, the plaintiffs complained that the LACTC never seriously considered keeping the subway under Wilshire Boulevard, for which they said construction costs would be lower and ridership would be higher.
The LACTC, which is using federal funds, says it must go south of the boulevard to avoid a federally designated area of soils saturated with potentially explosive methane gas. Green and McCormick said the LACTC knowingly based that decision on faulty data that overstates the danger under Wilshire and underestimates conditions on the other route.
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