In the lead-up to Thursday's important MTA Board vote on the $1.7 billion Crenshaw-LAX Transit Corridor study, County Supervisor/MTA Board Member Mark Ridley-Thomas has presented a motion to request that the Crenshaw-LAX Light Rail study include an option for an entirely below-grade alignment (subway) on Crenshaw Boulevard, the heart of the Los Angeles African-American community.
The motion is offered in response to numerous requests from the Crenshaw community, from the Los Angeles City Council and from Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, among others.
If approved by a majority of the 13-member MTA Board, which includes Mayor Villaraigosa and Westside County Supervisor Zev Yaroslasky, who have their own plans for a 13-mile subway down the affluent Wilshire Corridor, the Ridley-Thomas Crenshaw Boulevard subway motion would require the MTA to study undergrounding the roughly 1-mile gap between 48th and 59th streets of the 3-mile Crenshaw portion of the 8.5-mile Crenshaw-LAX Line.
Currently the Metropolitan Transit Authority staff proposes the section only be studied and built at street-level. The remaining portions of the line on Crenshaw Boulevard are proposed to be subway (59th to 67th streets and 39th to 48th streets), or have options to include a subway when funding is identified (39th Street to Exposition Boulevard). The motion also directs staff to identify a strategy to fund construction of the 48th to 59th segment.
A Time for Fairness
“If MTA can spend the money for 13 miles of subway for Wilshire, surely we can get just 3 miles of subway for Crenshaw,” said a spokesman for the Fix Expo Campaign and Joint Committee of South L.A. Neighborhood Councils on Rail Transit. “We applaud the leadership of Supervisor Ridley-Thomas and will be at the MTA board meeting in large force to show our support for the motion.”
If the section from 48th to 59th streets is built at street-level, 225-ton trains would operate at 35 to 40 miles per hour, crossing as frequently as 24 times an hour during rush hour, just a block away from Crenshaw High School and right in front of View Park Prep School. The proposal created predictable tension with community groups, who have captured headlines in their fight against the proposed Expo Line street-level crossing at nearby Dorsey High School.
“The Ridley-Thomas subway motion would spare the Crenshaw community of the pain and trauma experienced by so many people, including rail operators on MTA's Blue Line, America's deadliest light rail line,” said Lester Hollins, a former MTA light rail operator and Windsor Hills resident. The mostly street-level Blue Line has killed 96 people and been in over 844 reported accidents to date.
The MTA staff's proposed street-level alignment from 48th to 59th Street would also require the removal of 200 frontage parking spaces crucial to black-owned small businesses, and the removal of mature trees that contribute to Crenshaw Boulevard’s scenic highway status.
“A full subway on Crenshaw would create more opportunity for much needed economic revitalization, speed up the line, and encourage more people to leave their cars at home and take transit,” said Jackie Ryan, President of the Leimert Park Village Merchants Association. “It is a first classy 21st century solution that befits the Crenshaw community.”
Mr. Goodmon may be contacted at dg@fixexpo.org
