Today, our South L.A. community is literally fighting to save lives.
We’re fighting because a multitude of citizen voices that until some months ago were not very well organized were ignored for decades.
Ignored by the MTA. Ignored by the LADOT. Ignored by the Federal Transit Administration. Ignored by the California Public Utilities Commission. Ignored by County Supervisor Yvonne Burke, and City Council members Bernie Parks, Jan Perry and Herb Wesson who all sit on the Expo Line Board, which is responsible for building the Expo Line.
In the past, the South L.A.’s safety and environmental impact concerns were dismissed, not on merit, but because the voices of the individuals speaking were not viewed as powerful enough to warrant attention and respect.
As a transit advocate, I find that tragic. Tragic because, as I’ve come to learn over the last year, it means that the way the Expo Line and others in our region are built is based not on good or safe transit planning, but instead on political power.
Over the past few months, the scales of power in South L.A. have shifted.
Our community, which has long been neglected, has risen. We have brought with us an increase in our expectations of our local political leadership. With a strong united voice, the South L.A. community has proclaimed to our local elected leaders:
We are not your subjects.
You are elected to work with and serve us.
This is our moment, South L.A. This is our time.
Through much trial, tribulation and legal efforts we, the South L.A. community, have, after decades of talking, finally convinced our local officials (Mr. Wesson, Mr. Parks, Parks, Ms. Perry and Ms. Burke) to re-evaluate the proposed street-level Farmdale Avenue railroad crossing.
At Farmdale, the train would pass 240 times a day, just 30 feet from classrooms at Dorsey High School.
A train-car accident here, like the hundreds of train-car accidents on the MTA Blue Line, would push the car or train into Dorsey High classrooms, or directly where hundreds of Dorsey students would be standing.
An Accident Is a Cinch
Building the train at street-level across Farmdale would be a historic tragedy waiting to happen.
The MTA has known from the beginning that a street-level crossing at Dorsey was problematic and did not meet South L.A. community standards. They were told by us and they were told by the LAUSD.
Interest groups in Santa Monica knew as well.
Yet these interest groups refuse to support anything other than a street-level crossing at Farmdale, putting in danger our South L.A. children and ruining our South L.A. classrooms.
As we, the South L.A. community, work to address this issue, the Santa Monica interest group is pressuring our elected officials to deny our community the safety that an underpass would provide.
The pillars of the Santa Monica interest groups' opposition are as misleading as the information distributed by MTA/Expo (as explained at www.FixExpo.org).
The basis of their opposition is also revealing. Their statement is that by delaying this project to study an overpass or underpass at Farmdale, the fate of line would be jeopardized.
Stated simply, they are more concerned about getting the Expo Line to Santa Monica than the lives of our South L.A. children.
It is clear that it is the MTA and our local politicians who waited two decades until this very late juncture to address the Farmdale crossing problem. We are still waiting for them to address the many other problematic crossings in South L.A.
A Message for Santa Monica
And now that the day is finally here, Santa Monica interest groups seek to combat our South L.A. community, which is finally being heard, because we have dared to come together and demand something of our political leadership.
We have a message for the Santa Monica interest group and politicians who could care less if the Expo Line catches fire in South L.A., just as long as the fire is out when it reaches the Santa Monica border:
Your input and negative interference in South L.A. is unwelcome.
We, the South L.A. community, will determine how the Farmdale crossing will be designed.
Our elected officials were electred by us, are accountable to us, and we expect them to represent us
Click here to view video excerpts of the PUC hearing on Farmdale at Dorsey HS on Nov. 5.
Strength in unity.
Damien Goodmon, Coordinator, Citizens' Campaign to Fix the Expo Rail Line dg@fixexpo.org P.S. To email the Expo Line Board (Mr. Parks, Ms. Perry, Ms. Burke and Mr. Wesson) and Mayor Villaraigosa to tell them to support South L.A.’s request to study an underpass at Farmdale, just copy and paste the following email addresses:
councilmember.parks@lacity.org,
councilmember.wesson@lacity.org,
councilmember.perry@lacity.org,
seconddistrict@lacbos.org,
zev@lacbos.org,
alan.corlin@culvercity.org,
pam-oconnor@santa-monica.org,
mayor@lacity.org
CITIZENS' CAMPAIGN TO FIX THE EXPO RAIL LINE
A project led by Save Leimert Neighborhood Coalition,
Expo Communities United and Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Homeowners' Coalition
P.O. Box 8508
Los Angeles, CA 90008
Fax: 323.295.9467
