Experts to Examine Safety of Subway Tunnels : Transit: Independent panel is appointed after disclosure that some walls are thinner than specified.

Local transit officials named a panel of three technical experts Wednesday to examine the structural soundness of Los Angeles’ subway tunnels and the quality of supervision performed during construction.

The panel members are to report directly to Franklin E. White, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and to Richard Alatorre, a Los Angeles City Council member who is chairman of the transit agency.

White and Alatorre said the panel members would be assisted by structural engineers from the California Department of Transportation, an agency not directly involved in the Metro Rail project. The panel was named in response to a Times article last month reporting that numerous segments of the subway between Union Station and Pershing Square were built with concrete thinner than 12 inches as specified in the design.

“We intend to give this independent panel the latitude necessary to investigate any and all issues they believe should be addressed,” White said, “and (to) order any testing they believe should be performed, to resolve the allegations that have been raised about the safety of the Metro Red Line tunnel and the quality of the management decisions made during its construction.”

The panel members named Wednesday were: Edward J. Cording, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois and a member of the National Academy of Engineering who is known for his geotechnical expertise; John M. Hanson, a professor of civil engineering and construction at North Carolina State University, described by White as an expert on concrete, and Paul DeMarco, a retired New Jersey executive who spent 50 years working as a laborer and tunnel superintendent on underground projects in New York City, Atlanta and abroad.

White said the panel could hire seismic engineering experts if necessary.

None of the three has ties to the Los Angeles subway project, although Hanson formerly was president of an engineering firm that helped investigate a July, 1990, fire that forced rebuilding of the twin tunnels that lead into the Union Station subway depot. The fire was determined to be accidental.

White called for the panel to be thorough but to report its conclusions “in as expeditious a manner possible.” The panel members will begin meeting within 10 days and will be paid at a rate yet to be determined, MTA officials said.

Announcement of the panel had been postponed from last week, as White tried to enlist specialists who are respected and do not have ties to the Los Angeles project or to the major firms that have overseen construction here.

“Their fate isn’t going to hinge on what we think of them when they’re done here,” White said in an interview. “Those were the kinds of people I wanted.”

White said the panel would work through his office and would not report to officials of either the MTA’s Rail Construction Corp. or Parsons-Dillingham, the joint venture paid more than $150 million to oversee construction of the 4.4-mile Red Line.