Third in a series
Re “Removal of Hearing Aids Fails to Stanch Light Rail’s Blare”
As a longtime East Culver City resident and a strongly discontented neighbor of the 2½-month-old light rail noise that terminates nearby, Vince Motyl feels betrayed by the MTA that had promised him peace.
Running 21 hours a day, how much greater is the noise than what the MTA had assured residents?
Mr. Motyl, an investment banker, did not have to dip deeply into his memory.
“A hundred percent,” he fired back without hesitation.
“At the beginning, Metro did a sound study,” he said. “They said that the noise level now is less than it was when we had National Boulevard here without a train.
“It was the most insulting statement any individual could have made. It’s a bald-faced lie! We live with it. Don’t tell me it was better before than it is now.”
Mr. Motyl is not despairing, yet. Is he confident the County will remedy the train noise that he says is plaguing a wide swath of neighbors?
“I would hope they will,” he said.
“I was really heavily involved with (former City Council members) Sandi Levin and Alan Corlin and Carol Gross, and we did the Pasadena bit. Pasadena had basically the same problem we do. It took lawsuits in Pasadena to get the thing taken care of.
“I would hope that light rail would say, ‘We’re wrong and let’s do it.’
“You have got to understand that this project is nine hundred and eighty million dollars of taxpayers’ money.”
Placing a special stamp on each syllable, Mr. Motyl added: “That is over one hundred million per mile (from the downtown Los Angeles beginning to the Culver City terminus). And that does not include a whole heckuva lot of land acquisition because they had the right-of-way.
“Where did the money go?” he wants to know.
His voice rising: “Can’t they do it right for that kind of money?
“What would it take? Two hundred million dollars a mile? The fact is, it’s ludicrous.”
(To be continued)
