Red Line Russian Tour

The group of engineers touring the site of Red Line tunneling along Lankershim Boulevard on Friday may have been from Russia, but they displayed a remarkable grasp of Los Angeles politics.

“You’re late now by six months, right?” one of them, speaking through an interpreter, asked subway construction manager Fred Smith. “Don’t you have funding problems?” another wondered.

Those touchy subjects aside, the dozen representatives of cities across Russia appeared to enjoy their journey to the center of North Hollywood. They came to L.A. after a stop in San Francisco, part of a U.S. tour to establish partnerships with their American counterparts and evaluate highway, bridge and tunnel construction equipment.

After donning hard hats, boots, safety goggles and bright orange vests, the visitors first toured the site at ground level, crossing a wooden bridge and peering into the 85-foot-deep tunnel. Some captured the scene with camcorders and scribbled notes.

The group then descended several flights of stairs and entered the tunnel that lies along Lankershim Boulevard across from Universal Studios. Splashing through fetid mud and milky standing water, they tilted their heads up to look at an air shaft topped by a patch of blue sky.

The guests chatted in rapid-fire Russian, gesturing excitedly at the massive cranes and rubble-filled construction trains. Amid the deafening machine din, they could offer only terse, one-syllable assessments of their tour, which lasted less than an hour and ended abruptly when their tour guides whisked them onto a waiting bus.

More interested in technical matters than chatting with an American journalist, the group peppered Smith with questions on everything from how air gets circulated through the tunnel via massive tubes to the staggering of workers’ shifts to achieve the most productivity.

It was Caltrans, a sponsor of the Russians’ U.S. tour, that floated the idea of an MTA tunnel visit. After showing the Russians some Southland highways, Caltrans officials ushered the engineers to North Hollywood for a peek at public, versus private, transportation.

MTA spokesman Steve Chesser, who accompanied the group into the tunnel Friday, said one reason for the exchange was Russia’s transition from communist to free-market economic policies.

“There was a lot of subway building over there during communism,” Chesser said. “But now they’re operating under a completely different system. They need to find financing partners and do other things they didn’t used to do.”

Gary Kramer, an engineer working for a group of consultants hired by MTA, also helped lead the tour.

“America is free enterprise and Russia is burgeoning free enterprise,” he said. “They kept asking, ‘How do you get your funding?’ ”

At least, another subway official noted with some relief, they didn’t ask about earthquakes.