With a Few Potholes Ahead, Building of Pasadena Blue Line About to Start

After years on the drawing boards, a long-delayed light-rail line from Union Station to Pasadena is finally moving into the concrete and rails stage.

More than 2,600 tons of steel rails from a Pennsylvania foundry are now stacked at a staging area near downtown Los Angeles.

Concrete has been poured for the first structures that will support a half-mile stretch of elevated track from Union Station to Chinatown.

All of the major construction contracts have been awarded and contractors are mobilizing for the work ahead. Trailers--the command posts for the building crews to follow--are in place.

Engineers are finishing their designs. The last parcels of land needed for stations along the old Santa Fe railroad right of way are being purchased.

And not long after the Rose Parade makes its annual New Year’s Day trek down Colorado Boulevard, workers will move into Old Pasadena to begin preparations for digging a trench for trains through the historic district.

If the inevitable problems during construction can be solved quickly, passengers could be riding the rails by July 2003 on the winding 13.7-mile route from Union Station through Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, Mt. Washington, Highland Park, South Pasadena and Pasadena.

The recent arrival of 38 flatbed rail cars, each carrying 70 tons of track, marked a major milestone for those who have waited decades for a return to the days of trolleys running between Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley.

The 80-foot sections of track standing in an open field near Chinatown are symbolic of the progress being made two years after the Pasadena project was taken from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Frustrated state lawmakers created the Pasadena Metro Blue Line Construction Authority to finish the project. The MTA halted work on the line in January 1998 after spending more than a quarter of a billion dollars on plans and bridge work.

“I’m sure glad I skipped the first 15 years of this,” said Rick Thorpe, chief executive officer of the construction authority. Instead, he looks forward to completing the line in the next 2 1/2 years.

A veteran builder of light-rail lines in San Diego and Salt Lake City, he knows firsthand the challenges that lie ahead. He says the biggest risks to completing the $710-million project on time and under budget are other government agencies and utilities, which must relocate power, water, and sewer lines.

Thorpe also is keenly aware of another potential bump in the road ahead. Community groups have objected to the authority’s request to the state Public Utilities Commission for approval to run trains through certain railroad crossings in the Mt. Washington area and in parts of Pasadena.

More than 400 residents of Mt. Washington turned out at a community meeting earlier this month to express concern about the potential impact of trains passing through their area from early morning until late at night.

The Pasadena line will follow an old Santa Fe railroad route that winds along the Arroyo Seco as it climbs out of Los Angeles into the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. At points along the way, the rail line passes quite close to homes, apartments and businesses.

“We are concerned about the noise,” said Paul Ahrens, co-chair of the Mt. Washington Assn.’s Blue Line Committee. “Topography and geography of this arroyo is such that sound really travels. . . . Sound is very much a key issue,” he said, because a train could run through the area every four minutes at peak periods.

Ahrens, a 12-year resident of the neighborhood, said it was unlawful for the Santa Fe freight trains to sound their horns in Mt. Washington and Highland Park except for emergencies.

But the MTA’s practice has been to sound the horn at every rail crossing. Once construction is complete, the Pasadena line will be turned over to the MTA, which will operate the three-car trains.

“The fact is we’re going to have a big problem here with the train coming through,” said Lisa Moncure, another Mt. Washington neighborhood activist. “The community is very concerned.”

Some members of the neighborhood association want a grade separation built at Avenue 45, a street that serves as the main connection from Mt. Washington to Figueroa Street and the Pasadena Freeway.

Thorpe said it is too late for that to happen. The authority needs to construct the rail project as planned, he said, but could come back later and build a grade separation if the money to pay for that improvement can be found.

“There is no way we can grade separate now. We don’t have the money and we don’t have the time,” he said. “The only thing we can do is to mitigate the noise” and that “might resolve their concerns.”

Thorpe said he plans to take a group of neighborhood activists to San Diego in early January to see and hear how that city’s light-rail system.

Several leaders of the Mt. Washington group traveled to Hawthorne last week to listen to the horn on the new train that the MTA plans to use on the Pasadena line.

“It was good to see the train in question,” Ahrens said. But he still believes “we’ve got to find a solution that doesn’t involve regular sounding” of the horn.

Just up the track on a long straightaway from Avenue 51 to Avenue 59 in Highland Park, Ahrens said, the construction authority has agreed to slow the train to 20 mph and not to sound the horn at every intersection.

At the behest of county Supervisor Gloria Molina, the MTA board has directed its staff to work with the construction authority to eliminate to the greatest extent possible the noise impact of the trains.

When the rail line enters Pasadena, it will encounter another hotbed of opposition. A group called Citizens Against the Blue Line at Grade has objected to grade crossings on major east-west thoroughfares--Glenarm Street, California Boulevard and Del Mar Boulevard.

Karen Cutts, the group’s co-chair, said the organization wants to separate the trains and the traffic to minimize delays, eliminate safety hazards to motorists and pedestrians, and avert environmental problems.

Protest Filed With Utilities Panel

“Pasadena is in a development boom,” with new office, college, biotech and residential projects planned, Cutts said. She said that traffic congestion will get worse when those projects are built if light-rail trains pass through key intersections 200 times a day.

“We are not opposed to the Blue Line, we are just opposed to the Blue Line running at grade,” she said.

Although the group’s comments have failed to sway the Pasadena City Council or the construction authority, the 17-page protest to the Public Utilities Commission has gotten the attention of both bodies.

“We’re doing everything we can to show [the utilities commission] how safe our project is,” said Pasadena City Councilman Paul Little, a member of the construction authority board. “They are familiar with projects like this and are sophisticated enough not to taint our project with the Long Beach Blue Line.”

Little was referring to a utilities commission study that found the Blue Line from Los Angeles to Long Beach, also run by the MTA, has the worst safety record of any light-rail line in California. In the last 10 years, 53 people have been killed by Blue Line trains after driving around crossing gates or walking across the tracks in front of an oncoming train.

“We are suffering from all aspects of the Long Beach Blue Line,” Thorpe said.

To eliminate confusion with the Long Beach line and build its own distinct identity, Thorpe said there is a strong desire to rename the Pasadena line. The construction authority is exploring the possibility of entering into an exclusive agreement with a corporate sponsor to name the train.

Thorpe insists the Pasadena line “will not have anywhere near the impacts” that opponents fear. But he acknowledges that “until we open up the system and they see for themselves that will remain a question mark.”

Crews will start work in January on a 1,200-foot trench that will carry the rail line through Old Pasadena. People will start to see dust and hear noise, Little said.

The construction authority also will decide next month on joint development projects to be built at four of the line’s 13 stations--Chinatown, Fillmore, Del Mar and Sierra Madre Villa.

In February, work will begin on a grade separation where the line crosses Figueroa Street just beyond the French Avenue station.

While construction proceeds, a study will be launched to examine the potential cost of a 20.3-mile-long extension from Pasadena east to Claremont. But before anyone commits to building a second stage of the rail line, Thorpe knows: “I still have to get Phase 1 done.”

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Picking Up Speed

The signs of progress on a long-delayed light-rail project from Los Angeles to Pasadena are becoming more obvious. Trainloads of steel rails have been delivered to a downtown staging area. Construction of an elevated section of track from Union Station to Chinatown is underway. After New Year’s, crews will start preparing to dig a trench for the rail line through Old Pasadena. Passengers could be riding the rails in about 2 1/2 years.