The Hand of the Unforeseen Still Stirs the Red Line Plan : Subway routing, equipment and legal issues persist

The many problems faced by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority were not magically solved through the sacrificing . . . er, firing . . . of Chief Executive Officer Franklin White four months ago. That has never been more painfully obvious.

Take the Mid-City segment of the Red Line subway, for example. On the surface of it, the proper route might be obvious: straight out Wilshire Boulevard past such major attractions as the La Brea Tar Pits and the Los Angeles County Art Museum. But the existence of underground methane gas along that route has led to a 10-year-old ban on federal funds for a subway tunnel there.

Sure, some experts now say tunneling along Wilshire is safe, but who is convinced that the MTA, with its history of problems, could do it without inviting disaster? Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), whose district includes the area in question, is one of the skeptics.

The route currently favored by transit planners runs south along Wilton Place and Arlington to Pico and San Vicente. That cuts across the congressional district of Rep. Julian C. Dixon, one of the MTA’s biggest friends in Washington. The L.A. Democrat originally supported the Wilshire route, but when many businesses there insisted that they didn’t want it, he welcomed the line to his needier Mid-City district.

You thought subway systems were only for transportation? Not so, not here or in any other major city in recent years. They attract and encourage development, and that’s not necessarily a bad goal. But this is one of the many subsets of issues with major implications that the MTA board has failed to fully address.

There’s more. A tunneling expert said last month that the two machines digging tunnels for the North Hollywood segment of the Red Line subway in the San Fernando Valley are the wrong type for the job. Why? The machines increase the risk of ground slumping, the expert contended. These tunnelers are rarely used on the type of loose, sandy soil that prevails in the Valley. If they are used, grouting (a glue-like substance pumped into the ground) is required to harden the route ahead. The resinous grout is being used along the Lankershim Boulevard segment of the line to curb sinkage. In these cases, the use of grout is sensible. Similar diligence might have avoided subsidence problems on Red Line routes in the Valley last year. But grout is expensive. The Lankershim segment’s construction costs have soared 44% over budget, with two-thirds of the work remaining to be done.

There’s also a lawsuit filed by Hollywood and North Hollywood community groups to halt the Hollywood/Runyon Canyon leg. Add that one to the similar filing by Hollywood Hills homeowners.

The list goes on: a still unresolved lawsuit over the city’s poor bus service and the lawsuit by property and business owners complaining of cracked floors and buckling walls along Lankershim, Hollywood and Wilshire boulevards. The woes seem endless.

Meanwhile, MTA Chief Executive Officer Joseph A. Drew, who succeeded White, and MTA Board Chairman Larry Zarian have agreed to consider financial relief for business owners who have suffered losses in the wake of the subway tunneling. This could cost the agency anywhere from several hundred thousand dollars to several millions.

What all of these unplanned spending increases (and the potential costs of various lawsuits) add up to is easily put. It makes Drew’s promise of eastward and westward extensions of the Red Line, a full Blue Line and expanded and improved bus service a lot less likely.

These are daunting circumstances, and the MTA and its board have yet to convince the doubters that the authority is up to the task.