PERSPECTIVE ON METRO RAIL : Red Line Should Follow Wilshire : Diverting the western extension to Pico / San Vicente makes no political, economic or planning sense.

Economists, environmentalists and developers don’t often join forces to enforce environmental laws. But the stakes for all Los Angeles in the western extension of the Metro Rail Red Line are high enough to compel our joint action in the public interest.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission recently certified environmental documentation to take the subway from Western Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard down to Pico and San Vicente boulevards. It considered no other route, such as the historically preferred one straight out Wilshire to Westwood and UCLA. Nor did it consider where the subway would go from San Vicente and Pico.

All the other major transportation corridors, to Long Beach, through Hollywood to the San Fernando Valley, the Eastside corridor, have been systematically thought through. This proposed Red Line alignment, however, does not make city planning sense, environmental sense or economic sense. Nor does the process used by LACTC to arrive at its decision meet the legal requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act or the National Environmental Policy Act.

The routing of the Metro Rail Red Line is critical because it will determine the physical shape and economic health of our city for the next century, affecting the lives of millions. It is a decision that will permanently change the very fabric of the urban landscape. Therefore it must be made only after full and open debate of all the alternatives, their costs and benefits and their impacts on the lives of all of our citizens, as required by both the state and federal environmental acts.

The principle environmental benefits to be derived from Metro Rail will be reduction of air pollution and saving of energy, by getting people out of their cars and into more energy-efficient transportation. How well these benefits are realized is directly related to the numbers of people who will use the system.

The proposed Pico/San Vicente route will serve between 30% and 50% fewer riders than the straight Wilshire route. The Pico/San Vicente area is dominated by one- and two-story residential buildings with a few small-scale commercial structures, while the Wilshire corridor is the most densely developed and populated alignment in the Los Angeles Basin and already has many millions of square feet of existing, job-supporting buildings and the traffic to go with them. It also contains the popular Los Angeles County Art and George C. Page museums.

Tunneling through methane is not a problem. Much of the subway already safely built runs through the same kind of methane-laden ground that lies under Wilshire and the Pico/San Vicente area. Ed McSpedon, president of LACTC’s Rail Construction Corp., has said that tunneling through methane-rich soil is a wholly manageable technical matter and that such considerations should not drive the decision about where to put Metro Rail.

The economic benefits are just as clear. It doesn’t make sense to build a 2.3-mile spur at an additional estimated cost of $210 million and 30% to 50% less ridership. The proposed Wilshire-route stations at La Brea and Fairfax avenues would both have sufficient traffic to be attractive to developers, who would gladly build the stations in exchange for the development rights over them. With a projected $1.2-billion shortfall in the LACTC budget over the next five years, we can’t afford to foreclose such opportunities while building a longer route with less ridership.

The federal and state environmental acts require only that a fair and open process be used during decision-making, and that this process be carried out in the light of day. Alternatives--including no project at all--must be fairly examined. The acts do not mandate a decision. However, by examining only this one isolated segment, the intent of both acts has been subverted.

The two acts also give citizens the right to sue if these goals and purposes are not fulfilled. We believe they have not been. Therefore we are challenging the environmental documents in court.

Alternate routes, including the Wilshire alignment, have not been studied because Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles) passed a law prohibiting the use of federal matching funds should this next Red Line segment be built under Wilshire. His stated reason was the methane non-problem. Waxman has told us that he is now willing to reconsider his long-held objection to studying the Wilshire alignment.

The lawyers representing LACTC have suggested that further study should be limited to the extension west from Pico / San Vicente. We agree that this should be studied, but not in isolation. The study should compare the costs, benefits and cumulative impacts of any new alignment with the long planned, straight-out-Wilshire route all the way to Westwood.

Now that Waxman appears to be willing to look at the pros and cons of a Wilshire subway, only the concerted action of this city’s citizens will persuade the transportation commission to reopen its environmental analysis. Our lawsuit is a last resort. We much prefer to see our public officials behave responsibly without court orders. We welcome public support for our effort.