BY DAMIEN GOODMON

Editor’s note: The statement below is on behalf of the Citizens’ Campaign to Fix the Expo Rail Line and the South Los Angeles Neighborhood Council’s Joint Committee on Rail Transit. It was released in light of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority staff’s recommendation to have a light-rail line instead of a busway for the Crenshaw Corridor. The proposal calls for the $1.7 billion, 8 1/2-mile rail to start at Exposition and Crenshaw boulevards and eventually end at to the Green Line on Imperial Highway.

We agree with MTA staff’s recommendation of light rail over bus rapid transit, the inclusion of the below-grade (underground) sections along some parts of Crenshaw Boulevard, and the recommendation to continue study of underground options and stations elsewhere along the route.  

However, the portion on Crenshaw between 48th and 60th streets, in Park Mesa Heights, will be a rallying point for our community. Staff is recommending the section, which abuts View Park Prep School and is about a block away from Crenshaw High School, only be studied as street-level with no option for underground. We disagree, and want to avoid the problems articulated by L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina regarding the Gold Line’s Eastside Extension safety issues. 

Staff’s recommendation for street-level crossings in the Park Mesa Heights community will increase safety hazards to school-aged children and the public at large; result in the removal of hundreds of parking spaces important to the area’s commerce; require chopping down tall median trees that are crucial to Crenshaw Boulevard’s scenic highway status; increase congestion at heavily traveled cross streets, such as Slauson Avenue and 54th Street; slow down the overall traveling speed of the line; and impair otherwise good economic development opportunities.

From traffic, parking, safety, economic development and procedural standpoints, it is a mistake.

As requested by the community, the neighborhood councils and L.A. City Council, an underground option from 48th to 60th Street must be included among the other options under study, so when funding becomes available the option can be seamlessly integrated into the Crenshaw Line project without delay. MTA should avoid the mistakes of the Expo Rail while building on Crenshaw. 

Additionally, we disagree with staff’s recommendation for the design and preliminary engineering contract. It appears Metro staff wants the board to throw aside a perfectly capable and eminently qualified team that included businesses owned by people who live in the Crenshaw Corridor, in favor a team led out of Orange County.

The largest public works project in the history of South L.A. should not be designed from Orange County.

Staff is recommending the Hatch Mott McDonnell’s team over the PB Americas team, which included, among others, Terry Hayes of Terry Hayes Associates, and Roland Wiley of RAW International. These local African American business leaders have done all of the preliminary work to date for this project going back to the early 1990s, have deep roots in the Crenshaw area, have volunteered their expertise on numerous community projects, and most importantly, have a strong understanding of the pulse of the Crenshaw community, because they live here.

I don’t yet know why the PB Americas team was not selected, but the MTA board should overrule the staff recommendation, to ensure that the promises made by elected officials to generate more jobs and a leadership role for members of the community are promises kept.

We will be working in the coming weeks to persuade the MTA Board to address these issues promptly so our region and the Crenshaw corridor communities can receive what is necessary and what we are due: a fast, safe and reliable alternative to the traffic that is clogging our streets and polluting our air.

Damien Goodmon can be reached at dg@fixexpo.org.