Massive Alameda Corridor Project Stirs Neighborhood Anger

The Komatsu excavator is a dinosaur-size machine that weighs more than 100 tons, stands 19 feet tall and brandishes a massive claw that can hoist and dump 10 tons of dirt in one easy motion.

For six months, two of these beasts have been digging through Los Angeles County’s urban core, heading north from Compton and South Gate, like a couple of Japanese movie monsters on a path to downtown Los Angeles.

The giant backhoes are excavating a 30-foot-deep trench, the key component to the 20-mile Alameda Corridor project. Once completed in two years, the $2.4-billion high-speed railway will move cargo from the bustling harbor to rail hubs near downtown Los Angeles where trains can connect to markets across the country.

For supporters, the rumble of the Komatsus is a welcome sign that the most expensive and difficult phase of one of the largest public works ventures in the nation is underway.

But for some nearby residents and business owners, whose neighborhoods have been cut in two by the big dig, construction has meant ear-piercing noise, choking dust, traffic headaches, lost revenue and reduced property values.

About half of the 20-mile Alameda Corridor project will be at grade level. The most expensive and difficult portion of the project is the other half, the 10-mile trench along Alameda Street, a heavily industrial thoroughfare that bisects some of the county’s poorest cities.

With only two miles of the trench excavated so far, more complaints are expected.

Edith Ordonez, manager of the Burger King at Florence Avenue and Alameda Street, said the traffic snarls caused by construction have kept customers away, causing a 40% drop in business.

“People can’t get across the street,” she said.

Other business owners charged that the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority, which is responsible for building the route, has been insensitive to their complaints.

“The most amazing thing is the way they’ve handled the whole thing,” said Leon Dietch, vice president of Century Machinery Co. in Vernon, who estimates that he lost about 35% of his business due to traffic problems and suffered cracks in his building from construction vibrations.

Huntington Park Councilwoman Rosario Marin, whose town is bisected by the trench, said the finished project will benefit the entire region. But she said the temporary effects are devastating to small businesses.

“It’s a fantastic project, but it cannot come at the expense of little mom and pop shops,” she said.

The corridor project was on the drawing board for nearly 16 years, with considerable time spent devising ways to reduce construction effects on neighbors.

Now that work is underway, corridor officials said they have been able to minimize the problems and still keep the project on schedule and on budget for completion in April 2002.

“It’s inevitable with lots of construction equipment and excavation going on that there will be a lot of issues that come up,” said Gil V. Hicks, general manager of the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority.

In recognition of that, Hicks said the agency is paying $12 million in mitigation funds to the six cities along the trench route to be used as the cities see fit.

Hicks and others noted that the problems so far have not been as severe as the snafus associated with the region’s other major transportation project--the Metro Rail subway, which was plagued early on by cost overruns, worker safety concerns and huge sinkholes.

Alameda Corridor officials argue that the long-term benefits of the project--increasing rail speeds by up to 40 mph--outweigh the temporary problems. They also predict that severe traffic congestion traditionally caused by slow-moving freight trains will be eliminated when street traffic will be able to cross the corridor while trains rumble along in the trench below.

The project is being funded by the sale of revenue bonds, a $400-million federal loan, a $400-million grant from the county’s two ports, and $347 million from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The debt will be paid off with fees charged to railroad companies that use the corridor.

The 10-mile-long trench, stretching from the Artesia Freeway in Compton north to 25th Street in Los Angeles, represents the middle

portion of the 20-mile rail corridor, with the southern and northern ends of the tracks running at street level.

The trench excavation has begun in two locations, at the Artesia Freeway and in South Gate, just south of Firestone Boulevard. Both operations are proceeding north at a pace of 80 feet per day.

Each day, 12,600 cubic yards of dirt are hauled away in 700 truck trips. Over the course of the job, crews expect to remove 4 million cubic yards of dirt--enough to fill Dodger Stadium five times over.

The trench will be 30 feet deep and 50 feet wide, big enough to hold two railroad lines and an access road that can be converted to track if future cargo volumes demand it.

Alameda Street and the at-grade section of the railroad corridor will be overhauled, with new pavement, track, overpasses, bridges and grade crossings. To accommodate more trucks, Alameda will be widened from four to six lanes south of the Artesia Freeway.

Each day, 400 workers toil on the trench. Over the life of the project, about 8,800 workers will be employed.

To support the trench walls, crews drill thousands of 50-foot-deep holes into the earth, four feet apart, and fill the holes with concrete and rebar. The dried concrete creates columns that act as a frame for the trench walls.

Monitoring Dust Levels

The Komatsus are the heart of the excavation project, working eight hours a day, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., five days a week. At each digging site, trucks idle along Alameda Street, waiting to be filled and directed to landfills.

Water trucks routinely wet down loose dirt at the dig site and on adjacent streets to keep the dust down. But some neighbors said it is not enough.

Bill Kelly, a spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District, said his agency is monitoring the dust in response to several complaints raised by Compton residents.

The agency can impose restrictions if it determines that the dust is causing a public nuisance, he said. But so far, the agency has found no serious problems.

Some neighboring business owners said the construction has been no problem.

Nick Alexander, owner of the BMW dealership at Alameda Street and Gage Avenue, said Alameda Corridor crews have been vigilant about wetting down the dust to keep it from coating his cars.

“So far it has been less of an intrusion that we had planned for,” he said.

Myron Smith, the manager of Elite Collision Center in Compton, said he has not been so lucky. He complained that his workers must routinely take time off from painting and repairing cars to wash construction dust off the freshly painted cars that are parked on the street near the excavation at Greenleaf Boulevard and Alameda.

“This is killing the revenues,” he said.

But the loudest complaints have been about the traffic headaches caused by the construction.

Alameda Street carries up to 32,000 daily vehicle trips. It is a heavily industrial corridor that includes mostly large manufacturers and factories. But the street also is home to dozens of restaurants and small shops that rely on street traffic for customers.

Thomas Gibson, who owns the Alameda Animal Hospital on Alameda Street in Compton, said his business is down 35% because of traffic delays. He said vibration from the excavation has left cracks in the walls of his small hospital.

Corridor officials said that every intersection that has been closed for construction has been replaced by a temporary crossing nearby.

But most of the temporary crossings are narrower than the closed intersections and some do not have functioning traffic lights. Traffic at the temporary crossings is often bogged down by the hundreds of double-trailer trucks hauling dirt.

Hicks said he sympathizes with the business owners and added that he is doing his best to respond to the problems.

Randolph E. Ward, the state administrator for the Compton Unified School District, disagreed. He said corridor officials promised eight months ago to pay for crossing guards at Frances Willard Elementary School on El Segundo Boulevard only a few yards from the trench site. Ward said he has yet to see the promised guards.

“I hope to God we don’t have a dead child because of this,” he said.

A spokesman for Tutor-Saliba, the contractor heading the construction project, insisted that the company hired the guards. But administrators at Willard Elementary confirmed that no guards have shown up at the school.

To make way for the project, the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority has purchased or temporarily taken over 132 properties, including 41 properties that were taken through condemnation proceedings. In many of those cases, corridor officials have paid to temporarily use portions of a sidewalk or parking lot.

Mike Meraz, a Realtor who owns several properties along the Alameda Corridor route, said he fought nearly a year to get the agency to compensate him for tearing up the sidewalk in front of one of his buildings for a bridge on Santa Fe Avenue near Washington Boulevard.

Corridor officials settled the dispute with Meraz by reinforcing a wall on his brick building and providing him with free parking at an adjacent lot. But he is still unhappy.

“This whole thing has been kinda nasty,” he said from his office, only a few yards from the corridor route.

Meraz said the construction has reduced the value of his Santa Fe Avenue building, which houses 15 tenants, including a garment business and a label maker. Meraz displayed a document from the Los Angeles County assessor’s office, showing that the value of the building had been reduced last year from $818,000 to $700,000.

Joe Burton, general counsel of the corridor authority, declined to discuss specific cases, but said the agency has been fair with every property owner.