Debate Over Subway Path Surfaces Again

Why would transit planners want to route the Mid-City portion of the subway away from Wilshire Boulevard--one of the busiest streets in the West--and bend it more than a mile to the south, bypassing the County Museum of Art, La Brea Tar Pits and other cultural attractions?

Museum officials, the MTA’s own citizen advisory panel and the city of Beverly Hills are asking that question again as transportation officials today are expected to recommend studying a route that would move the alignment even farther south as part of a plan to extend the Red Line to the Westside.

The answer lies in the complex geology and politics of Los Angeles--and in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s desire to maintain good relations with two powerful local congressmen.

It also helps to explain why the Red Line stops a block from a deli famous for pastrami sandwiches but will not go to the Hollywood Bowl and why the Green Line trolley goes to El Segundo but not to Los Angeles International Airport.

In devising the county’s rail network, transit planners have said the system is designed to serve commuters, not cultural aficionados, sightseers or travelers. But that does not explain entirely why--in the view of critics--common-sense planning appears to have been lost on the Mid-City extension.

The debate over the Mid-City subway route has raged for years. But it came up again last week after the MTA staff recommended what one critic called a “Rube Goldberg-esque” route to replace one drawn on a napkin years ago as a political compromise.

The proposed new route would take the subway southwesterly from Wilshire and Western Avenue under Wilton Place and Arlington Avenue to Pico and San Vicente boulevards with stations at Olympic and Arlington, and Pico and San Vicente. No decision has been made on how the route will eventually reach the San Diego Freeway on the Westside.

The MTA had planned to take the subway from Wilshire and Western down Crenshaw Boulevard to Pico and San Vicente, but planners discovered high concentrations of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas beneath the alignment.

Methane gas was the problem that led officials to originally rule out a Wilshire route.

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Congress a decade ago banned the use of federal funds to tunnel under Wilshire around La Brea and Fairfax avenues. The ban was imposed at the urging of Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) after a methane gas explosion ripped apart a clothing store and injured 21 people near Farmers Market in 1985.

Advocates of the Wilshire route point to the MTA’s own tunneling expert who says that the subway can be built safely under the thoroughfare. And, they assert, methane gas concentrations are just as high--if not higher-- around Pico and San Vicente boulevards as they are on Wilshire. They also point to Wilshire as one of the city’s busiest bus routes and home to Park La Brea, the largest apartment complex west of the Mississippi, with 10,000 residents and cultural attractions.

“It’s a huge mistake, like putting the freeway in the wrong place,” said Larry W. McFarland, chairman of the MTA Citizens Advisory Council, which unanimously recommended a study of extending the subway down Wilshire with stations at La Brea and Fairfax avenues.

“These laws are not God-ordained,” said McFarland, citing the federal tunnel restrictions. “This Congress is free at any time to change the law based on new information.”

But some argue that the real impediment to the Wilshire route is not Mother Nature but two powerful local congressmen--Waxman and Julian C. Dixon (D-Los Angeles).

Waxman has long had reservations about a subway running through his Wilshire district, while Dixon is delighted to have it go through his south-of-Wilshire district.

James Watt McCormick, a Westside community activist who has pushed for the Wilshire route, told MTA officials last week: “The last time I checked the Constitution of the United States, there was no imperial power placed in a single congressman.”

Waxman said in an interview Tuesday that he remains skeptical of assurances that tunneling can be done safely through the methane gas zone, given the MTA’s history of problems with the subway project.

“My concern has always been the question of safety,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to make sense to take unnecessary risks.”

Dixon said Tuesday that he originally fought for the Wilshire route. “But once the decision was made not to go down Wilshire, I think it’s unfair to other areas of the community to try to keep going back and revisit the issue every year. It’s just time to move on.

“I recognize that there are people who want it there,” Dixon said, referring to Wilshire. “But I would also suggest that there are people who don’t want it there.”

MTA officials have declined to order further studies of the Wilshire route, preferring not to flirt with disaster--either politically or geologically. They fear that if they take too long to settle on a route, Congress could use local indecision as an excuse to cut funding.

And they fear angering Dixon, perhaps the MTA’s best friend on Capitol Hill, by backing off from their commitment to extend the subway into his district.

To run the subway into Dixon’s district is also seen as a first step toward extending a rail line into the African American community.

Mayor Richard Riordan, who a year ago urged a study of the Wilshire route, has backed off from the idea.

“No matter what we think, our hands our tied,” he said at a recent meeting. “If we act with indecision, it can hurt our chances to get hundreds of millions of dollars.”

County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said: “Unfortunately, our monies come from that federal government that makes those arbitrary and sometimes irrational decisions.”

The federal government is funding about half of the $5.8-billion subway.

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Officials also point out that the south-of-Wilshire route was decided on more than a decade ago as part of the political compromise to win funding for the subway project by switching the route from Waxman’s district to Dixon’s adjacent district.

The 2.3-mile Mid-City extension was to begin in 1994; it now appears likely that tunneling won’t start until at least 1998. Questions also have been raised about how much the line ultimately will cost and how the MTA will pay for it.

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Rerouting the Red Line

County transit planners will come before the MTA board today, proposing to study a new route for the Red Line in the Mid- City area. Hydrogen sulfide was discovered under the original path. But the MTA’s citizen advisory council, among others, says the MTA should study a route that follows Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row.

A route supported by the citizen group would run under Wilshire Boulevard, with stations at La Brea and Fairfax avenues, but the area lies within a methane gas zone where federal law in effect prohibits tunneling. On the original route, hydrogen sulfide has been found, prompting planners to suggest an alternate running southwest from Wilshire.