by Garth Meyer
A large crowd met at William Green Park in Lawndale last Saturday to walk parts of the two proposed routes of the C Line light rail extension. The event was put on by local L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell.
A decision on a light rail spur into the South Bay is scheduled for early next year.
“We want to build this so it works where we live, works geographically and people actually ride it,” Mitchell said before the crowd broke into small groups to walk to presentations at Stop A (168th Street), Stop B (Condon Avenue) and Stop C (Hawthorne Boulevard).
The two routes under consideration are: along the Hawthorne Boulevard median on elevated tracks; or along a Metro-owned freight train right-of-way through a Lawndale-North Redondo neighborhood.
County sheriffs kept watch during the sometimes contentious morning.
At Stop A, along the right of way, a man asked if less property taxes coming in – because of lower property values along the route if light rail is added – had been considered.
“That should be a question that should be asked,” he said.
At Stop B, one of the most narrow spots on the right of way, a Metro engineer — a veteran of several large-scale light rail projects around the country — said that sound walls would minimize noise impacts.
“We’re looking very hard at noise mitigation,” he said.
To a question about underground utility lines, the engineer said some would need to be moved.
He reiterated that no options are off the table for the project – including a choice to not build the extension.
More information was conveyed: light rail trains do not slow down for ground-level crossings, and safety infrastructure can be added so freight trains on the right of way need not blow their horns.
“Why haven’t we done that?” a woman asked.
“Quite frankly, nobody’s asked us to,” said the Metro engineer.
Light rail trains travel at 55 mph.
More questions came about the seemingly slim chute at Condon Avenue, through which the freight train tracks would be moved three feet, toward an existing retaining wall, to make way for two light rail tracks. The path of these tracks appeared to intrude on neighboring residential yards.
“We’ve had multiple, what we call tight areas,” the engineer said of other projects around the country. “We have laid it out and got it to fit.”
“With this density?” a woman asked.
The engineer said no eminent domain of residents’ property would be needed.
Back at Stop A, another Metro engineer estimated the right-of-way option would cut through 30 residential properties.
But eminent domain would not be needed because Metro owns the right-of-way encroachments which neighbors have (been permitted to) build driveways, yards, and fences on.
“Who encroached on who?” Supervisor Mitchell later said to Easy Reader.
She rode along the walk on a bike.
The subject of noise drew further questions. Engineers said a trench option for the right of way (ROW) route could reduce sound. They said that trains at line of sight levels give off the most noise.
Sound walls, for the above-ground ROW option, would be 8- to 10-feet tall, an engineer said.
“No-build is still on the table,” a Metro engineer said at Stop A, the last stop for some groups.
A man noted that in Metro’s Draft Environmental Impact Report for the project, it stated that the no-build option has the least impact.
“So why don’t we choose that?” he said.
“It has the fewest impacts but the fewest benefits,” the man from Metro said.
He said ridership is projected to be 15 percent higher if the light rail went down Hawthorne Boulevard – with a station in front of South Bay Galleria, soon to be redeveloped as the South Bay Social District.
The ROW option would connect to a new transit center opened earlier this year behind and to one side of the Galleria.
“We’re so close to the freight train as it is, and we’re adding two light rail lines over pipelines?” said a ROW resident.
A Metro representative said they would not need to move many pipelines.
Stop C was next to a Taco Bell on Hawthorne at 169th Street, where traffic streamed by intermittently.
Josh Standifer, a Lawndale ROW resident and activist, made an offer to the engineers on site.
“I’ll give you $100 if you can hit the building on the other side of the street with a rock,” he said. “You can’t. Because there is so much space. Plenty of space for a train.”
Back at Stop A, finishing the tour, another Lawndale man made a comment.
“We’re so quiet here compared to Hawthorne Boulevard. I couldn’t hear anything there,” he said.
Supervisor Mitchell, in an interview with Easy Reader at the conclusion of the event, said people call for politicians to be less divisive and talk to each other more.
“The same expectations they have of me, I have of them,” she said. “Civil engagement applies to all of us.”
Did she expect this big of a crowd?
“I expected more people, frankly,” Mitchell said, noting that 500 had sent RSVPs.
Was there anything new that she picked up on at this meeting?
“No,” Mitchell said. “The people have done very well at (getting their comments to us).”
She noted that she has walked the ROW by herself. When asked if she has concerns that some areas are too narrow, she said when she walked it, Metro’s distances and spacing checked out.
Mitchell has set a community meeting for Jan. 18 in Los Angeles to gather more input.
The Board of Supervisors will make the decision on the C Line route. Their choice is expected in the first quarter 2024.
“There’s a lot of misinformation surrounding this project,” Mitchell said.
She confirmed that Metro and the L.A. Coroner’s office continue to look into the potential grave sites in two Lawndale yards along the right-of-way.
Mitchell appeals for C Line funding
Supervisor Holly Mitchell appeared at a South Bay Council of Governments meeting in November, sharing letters she wrote to state and federal sources seeking funds to close a $1 billion gap between the ROW option and the more expensive Hawthorne Option.
The purpose, the supervisor said, is to eliminate cost as a factor in the decision between the two lines.
Letters Mitchell showed to the Council of Governments were sent to U.S. Senators Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), and to Congressional representatives Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) and Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).
The at-grade and some elevated option along the ROW is estimated to cost $2 billion. A version along the ROW with some of it in trenches is estimated at $2.23 billion. The all-elevated train along Hawthorne, and partially next to the 405 freeway, would be $3 billion.
The City of Redondo Beach supports the Hawthorne option, as does Lawndale. ER
