Letters: Would you hear a train in B-flat?

Re “Subway worries for the Phil,” May 17

I am second to no one in my enthusiasm for riding the rail lines operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. But the proposed new subway line downtown must not — must not! — be allowed to impact the Walt Disney Concert Hall, whose extraordinary sound qualities make it a treasure.

All the acoustics experts in the world cannot change the fundamental truth that trains are noisy. I work in an office a short walk from the Expo Line, and several times a day I hear the clangs and whooshes of passing trains. This does not disturb me at work. But during a program of Baroque chamber music, it would bother me quite a lot.

Don’t let them hurt Disney Hall. It would be a crime against music, a crime against Los Angeles.

Cynthia Hart

Culver City

Music lovers are right to have concerns about trains passing underneath Disney Hall. But in my experience working in an auditorium close to a subway line, I haven’t had any problems.

I work at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, located adjacent to the subway station at the corner of Vermont Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. The facility’s Weingart Auditorium sits near the Red Line. During conferences, we are not disturbed at all by subway noise. Perhaps the concerned Disney acousticians could test noise levels in this auditorium for reference.

According to a graphic with the article, the proposed subway route makes a 90-degree turn near the concert hall. Anyone who has taken the subway knows that such turns create sustained ear-piercing screeches, which could cause problems at Disney.

Mike Takahashi

Granada Hills

The proposed subway tunnel connecting the Gold Line to the Blue and Expo lines downtown could compromise the acoustics at Disney Hall and the Colburn School. But the real concern is whether we even need this connector when we already have one that works quite well and is roughly the same length downtown.

It’s called the Red Line.

Bob Lentz

Sylmar

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