[Editor’s Note: See related story in The Lowdown.]
Freshly returned from Washington, D.C., County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, recently told the newspaper that his mission was to advocate for a light rail station in Leimert Park along the Crenshaw-to-LAX line.
“It is one of the applications for a Tiger Grant – well over $100 million, which we fully intend to push until the Leimert Park station is done,” Mr. Ridley-Thomas said.
The station will be easier to achieve, said the Supervisor, than the one-mile subway on the line, starting at 48th Street. Crenshaw line advocates are campaigning perhaps even more ferociously for the tunnel than for the station.
Asked whether that was for political or financial reasons, the Supervisor paused and said “financial reasons. The station is about half the cost of going underground, although I will push hard for both of them.
“At some point you have to realize that getting it done is problematic, so you have to make the appropriate decision.
“Having a station at Leimert Park is critically important. Undergrounding at Hyde Park would be equally important. We know that you can’t have everything. There has to be a way to get that Leimert Park station done –period.”
