Unlike last May, no histrionics this time.
County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas landed a major — if quiet, almost passive — light rail victory this morning when the Metro Board unanimously approved the general contours of the next-up route, Crenshaw-to-LAX, as a generic consent calendar item.
“I think this amounts to about 10 victories,” a jubilant Dan Rosenfeld, top-tier deputy to Mr. Ridley-Thomas, said in the afterglow of the discussion-free vote.
He counted off the points of conquest.
• “It is light rail and not bus rapid transit.
• “It is fully funded with local money, including Measure R.
• “It has a federal TIFIA (Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act) loan, the only project in the region that has it.
• “It is ready to start construction now, not 15 years from now as was originally slated.
• “It is underground, and almost all of this is new in the last couple of years (coinciding, not incidentally, with Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s election to succeed Yvonne Brathwaite Burke).
• “It is underground at Exposition.
• “It is underground at Martin Luther King and Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza.
• “It is underground as it goes past Vernon.
• “It is underground at Hyde Park.
• “It’s underground in downtown Inglewood.
• “And it’s underground near LAX.
“All of those are enhancements to the project,” ” said Mr. Rosenfeld, “most of which have been added in the last couple of years.”
Last spring the drawn faces worn Crenshaw-to-LAX supporters were much longer.
Four months ago, at a memorable late May meeting, there was thunder and lightning from the 13 members and the overflow crowd in the third-floor of the downtown Metro Board room when Mr. Ridley-Thomas sought, in vain, to have a hotly-argued mile-long tunnel and a station in Leimert Park included in the plans.
Too expensive by a ton, his numerous Board opponents tartly retorted.
They Were Readying for War
All summer, Crenshaw neighborhood advocates of the two crucial pieces — tunnel and the Leimert Park station — have been working feverishly to convince Metro to incorporate them in plans. In a parallel action, they have been working just as diligently to make provisional legal plans in case of rejection.
The once-longshot Leimert Park station — formerly regarded by Metro as too close to a King Boulevard station — is part of today’s plan, as Mr. Rosenfeld noted.
But because the middle-mile tunnel, from 49th Street to 60th Street, once again has been turned down, there probably will not be dancing this afternoon by the disappointed Crenshaw Avenue residents and entrepreneurs. As anticipated, Metro deemed going underground technically still possible, but realistically economically unconquerable.
Mr. Rosenfeld, chief aide to Supervisor Ridley-Thomas, said it is time to see the wider picture and recognize today’s broad endorsement as a splendid overall triumph for Crenshaw interests.
Mr. Rosenfeld counted a bundle of reasons to be grateful, including Board certification of two environmental reports, approval of the project description, adoption of the mitigation monitoring plan and the statement of overriding considerations.
“Those are five technical approvals that will allow the project to go back to Washington, D.C., for the Federal Transportation Administration to approve a record of decision endorsing this decision,” Mr. Rosenfeld said. “We expect this to happen next month.
“It will come back here next month for approval of what is called the life-of-project budget, which is $1.7 billion.
“At that point, staff is cleared to begin the bidding process.
“I am sure we will hear from Damien,” he said, referring to young Mr. Goodmon, leader of a rabid Crenshaw advocacy group that has pledged to go to legal war with Metro if their light-rail pillars were derailed. The activists’ suspicion all along has seemed to be that both the Leimert Park station and mid-mile tunnel would be turned away.
What they will do with a split decision remains to be seen.
