Westside residents sue over Expo line (Source: www.smdp.com)

Link: Westside residents sue over Expo line

Westside residents sue over Expo line
By Nick Taborek

March 15, 2010
COLORADO AVE — As many observers expected, a coalition of Westside homeowner groups has filed a lawsuit challenging the thoroughness of the environmental study recently approved for the Expo Light Rail line that transportation officials hope will connect Santa Monica to Downtown Los Angeles by 2015.

In a suit filed March 5 against the Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority, the group Neighbors for Smart Rail argues the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for phase two of the project, which covers the link from Culver City to Downtown Santa Monica, is inadequate because it failed to analyze the traffic impacts of several at-grade crossings in West L.A.

The planned rail line would cross Westwood Boulevard and Overland Avenue at-grade before crossing the I-405 freeway near Pico Boulevard. In Santa Monica the rail line would travel down Colorado Avenue to reach its final stop at Fourth Street.

Mike Eveloff, the president of Tract 7260 Association, one of the homeowners' groups that signed on to the suit as a plaintiff, said the challenge isn't an attempt to stop the rail line.

"We're not an anti-rail group," he said. "Our lawsuit exclusively has to do with the fact that the environmental impact report was fatally flawed," he said.

Among its deficiencies, he said, was a failure to analyze the proposed rail line's traffic effects on major thoroughfares like Overland Avenue, Westwood Boulevard, Pico Boulevard and Olympic Boulevard in the neighborhoods east of the I-405 freeway where the line crosses several busy streets. The law suit alleges the EIR is inadequate under California's Environmental Quality Act.

In a response to the lawsuit on Friday, the Expo Authority said it conducted "extensive environmental studies" and "intends to defend the project vigorously."

"Given the long and careful planning history, and the urgent need for traffic relief, we are extremely disappointed that a small faction of the community seeks to delay the extension of a project that has the overwhelming support of the communities on the Westside," the statement read.

Mayor Pro Tem Pam O'Connor, who also sits on Metro's board, said the lawsuit was "not unexpected."

"When you do a schedule you realize that there are complications that may arise," she said.

Darrell Clarke, president of the group Friends 4 Expo Transit, said overturning an EIR in court is always difficult, and in this case will be even more challenging because Expo planners have long assumed they would be sued and accordingly took special precautions.

"It's a big hill to climb for a plaintiff, particularly under these circumstances," he said.

Eveloff, though, said he expects a judge to overturn the EIR at a trial that he said should take place within six months.

"I expect that the judge will look at it and say the EIR did not adequately disclose the impacts," he said. "At that point we expect that the decision makers will see what their true alternatives are."

In addition to Tract 7260, the other groups involved in the litigation are: the West of Westwood Homeowners' Association, the Westwood Gardens Civic Association and the Cheviot Hills Homeowners' Association.

Expo Line Construction Authority responds to lawsuit (Source: thesource.metro.ne)

Link: The Source » Expo Line Construction Authority responds to lawsuit

Expo Line Construction Authority responds to lawsuit

As expected and as was widely reported yesterday, the group Neighbors for Smart Rail has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against the second phase of the Expo Line, which will run from Culver City to Santa Monica. The project, which was part of the Measure R package approved by voters, is scheduled to open in 2015.

Streetsblog Los Angeles has posted a copy of the lawsuit. The gist of it is that the group alleges that the final environmental impact study of the 6.6-mile line — which was adopted by the Expo Line Construction Authority Board of Directors last month — was flawed and that the train’s impacts were not adequately studied. The group has been particularly opposed to the train crossing three streets at gravel level — Overland, Westwood and Sepulveda.

Here is the response from the Expo Line Construction Authority:

Expo Authority Statement Regarding Litigation

The February 4, 2010 approval of the Phase 2 extension of the Expo Light Rail Line from Culver City to Santa Monica culminated decades of planning, including extensive environmental studies, to provide modern transit service connecting the Westside with Downtown L.A.

Given the long and careful planning history, and the urgent need for traffic relief, we are extremely disappointed that a small faction of the community seeks to delay the extension of a project that has the overwhelming support of the communities on the Westside.

The Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority (Expo Authority) is confident that the Phase 2 project complies fully with the California Environmental Quality Act and the Authority intends to defend the project vigorously. The Authority conducted many large-scale community meetings and well over one hundred additional key stakeholder briefings to discuss the alternatives that were studied and to obtain feedback from the public. The selected project alternative reflects the consensus of the communities served by the project and incorporates the highest standards for design, public safety and environmental protection.
In February, the Expo Authority certified the project’s Phase 2 Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR) under the California Environmental Quality Act and approved the preferred alternative alignment extending the Phase 1 project from Culver City to Santa Monica. At their March meeting, the Authority Board also authorized the CEO to negotiate and award contracts for preliminary engineering work, which will commence as soon as negotiations are complete.

Communities on the Westside of Los Angeles are among the most traffic-congested in the nation and have long been underserved when it comes to options for public transportation. We look forward to starting preliminary engineering work which will be the first milestone in bringing increased mobility and enhancing the quality of life for thousands of commuters throughout the Southland.

As part of the lawsuit, and as is typical of such suits, Neighbors for Smart Rail has asked for an injunction to halt construction. Of course, how any of this plays out in court remains to be seen. It should be noted that Metro is named as a defendant in the suit.

-- Steve Hymon

It’s On! Neighbors for Smart Rail File Suit Against Expo Construction Authority (Source: Streetsblog)

Link: Streetsblog Los Angeles » It’s On! Neighbors for Smart Rail File Suit Against Expo Construction Authority

It’s On! Neighbors for Smart Rail File Suit Against Expo Construction Authority

by Damien Newton on March 11, 2010

As predicted, the Westside Coalition of homeowners and businesses opposed to the construction of Phase II of the Expo Line at-grade through portions of the Westside have filed a petition to have the certification of the FEIR for the project overturned. You can read the full, twenty-six page, petition exclusively at Streetsblog, here, but the rationale for the challenge can be found on page three of the document:

This petition challenges the Expo Authority'S February 4, 2010 approvals for the Expo Phase 2 project, as well as the Expo Authority and FTA's omissions in connection therewith. This petition seeks to ensure that the Expo Authority and FTA fully comply with the requirements of CEQA and NEPA prior to initiating construction of the Expo Phase 2 project. NFSR does not oppose the Expo Line per se, but opposes construction of the project without the opportunity for the public, the Expo Authority, and the FTA to have a proper and legally valid environmental study which, inter alia, factually discusses and considers a reasonable range of alternatives as required, including grade separations at key intersections.

Hearing the case will be Judge David Jaffey, who has previously ruled on transparency issues, and more notably ruled against opponents of the Orange Line in 2004.

With No News of a Lawsuit, Expo Authority Shops for Contractors (Source: Curbed LA)

Link: Curbed LA: With No News of a Lawsuit, Expo Authority Shops for Contractors

With No News of a Lawsuit, Expo Authority Shops for Contractors

Friday, March 5, 2010, by Neal Broverman

Westside homeowners adamantly against Expo Phase II—they say because it runs above-ground—have until March 6th to file suit against the recently certified environmental impact report. That's tomorrow, and no news yet. Hmmm. The Expo Authority yesterday told Metro's Board of Directors that they're beginning the process of hiring a contractor to conduct engineering work on the Culver City to Santa Monica line. "This action represents the first step toward hiring a design-build contractor to construct the long-awaited light rail extension to Santa Monica," Expo says on its Facebook page. "Upon completion of successful negotiations, [preliminary engineering] contracts will be awarded to both firms and PE work will continue for six months. In November 2010, the Authority will select one of these PE firms as the design-build contractor to complete the design work and construct this vital mass transit link, which is scheduled to be completed in 2015." Could the Westside homeowners leading the charge againt Expo II, a group called Neighbors for Smart Rail, pull a last minute surprise on Oscar weekend? Anything's possible.

Light rail a step closer to reality (Source: www.smdp.com)

Link: Light rail a step closer to reality

Light rail a step closer to reality

By Nick Taborek

February 06, 2010

DOWNTOWN — Transportation officials this week signed off on a plan to extend the Expo light rail line to Downtown Santa Monica, approving the project's environmental review and selecting a route for the line's Westside component.

The decision by the Expo Authority's board on Thursday paves the way for construction to begin this year and marks a major milestone in the effort to link Downtown Santa Monica to Downtown Los Angeles by rail. The first phase of the project linking Downtown L.A. to Culver City is under construction, with the extension to Santa Monica scheduled for completion in 2015.

The Santa Monica City Council has supported the project as a way to reduce traffic, cut down on vehicle emissions and encourage transit-oriented development.

The $1.5 billion extension of the line would travel along Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica with the final stop at Fourth Street, where City Hall officials are mulling plans to create a pedestrian plaza.

Opponents of the project have criticized the environmental review process, saying the Expo authority should have more carefully considered building a portion of the line near Century City underground because of safety and traffic concerns.

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As approved, much of the line will be built at street level, though bridges will allow the train to bypass some traffic-clogged intersections, including Cloverfield Boulevard and Olympic Boulevard.

Kevin Hughes, president of the Cheviot Hills Homeowners Association, said his group and other Westside homeowners' associations that have banded together as Neighbors for Smart Rail could sue over the plan.

But he said one of the group's chief complaints is that the Expo authority hasn't been receptive to discussing homeowners' "community anxieties" over the project before pressing ahead.

"The only time they've ever talked to me about this was to talk to me in a formal way," he said. "I want somebody to come have breakfast with me."

A potential lawsuit, he said, would center on Expo's alleged failure to adequately analyze Westside traffic impacts and to consider making portions of the line into a subway.

The Expo authority has countered that building a tunnel would cost $224 million and isn't necessary.

Darrell Clarke, a prominent supporter of the light rail project and the president of the group Friends 4 Expo, said the Expo board made the right decision to move ahead with the project.

"There's no reason to delay. The thing has been studied to death," Clarke said.

While Santa Monica leaders have consistently backed Expo, the rail project drew criticism last year when the authority disclosed plans to build a rail maintenance yard on Exposition Boulevard near Stewart Street at a site owned by Verizon.

Residents raised concerns that noise from the 24-hour rail yard facility would disrupt the neighborhood.

The site remains slated for use as a maintenance yard, but Councilwoman Gleam Davis said Expo authority officials "are working diligently with Santa Monica to ensure that [the yard] will have minimal, if any, impacts."

Davis voted in favor of Expo plan on Thursday, sitting on the board as an alternate for Mayor Pro Tem Pam O'Connor, who is a permanent member of the Expo Authority board but missed the meeting because she is recovering from surgery.

"This [project is] important for our community and we will do as a community what we need to do to [preserve] the peace and quiet of our residents," Davis said.

Approval of Light Rail Concerns Neighbors (Source: Corsair)

Link: Corsair - Approval of Light Rail Concerns Neighbors

Approval of Light Rail Concerns Neighbors

By By Daniel Ross

Published: Thursday, February 25, 2010

Updated: Thursday, February 25, 2010
Expo Line

Michael Story

Kim Christiansen, Board Member of Neighbors for Smart Rail (NFSR), speaks on behalf of neighbors concerned by the approval of the rail line being built less than a mile from their homes.

In a packed meeting at the Palms Park Recreational Center on Feb. 20, local residents assembled to discuss an intended legal challenge to the Expo Authority to get a portion of the Expo Light Rail Line built below ground level.

Neighborhoods For Smart Rail, a coalition of homeowner organizations from the Rancho Park and Cheviot Hills areas, arranged the meeting to inform local residents of their intention to take their case to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, using a Final Environmental Impact Report they regard as being fundamentally and fatally flawed, as the basis of their argument.

The FEIR was submitted at an Expo Authority board meeting on Feb. 4, and its approval green-lighted construction to begin on phase 2 of the Expo Line project. Originally scheduled to begin later this year, phase 2 will link Culver City, where phase 1 finishes at Venice and Robertson, with Santa Monica.

However, having spent a number of years pushing to get the portion of the Expo Line between Overland and Sepulveda constructed below-grade (below ground), NFSR believe that the FEIR fails to address a number of fundamental issues which should have formed part of the report, and therefore makes its legality questionable.

“This is the worst EIR I have ever seen,” said Mike Eveloff, President of the Track 7260 Homeowners Association. “The report was supposed to take everything into account before any mitigating measures were made, but they’ve deliberately fudged the baseline to avoid taking [below-grade] into account.”

Other than taking pre-emptive measures to satisfy certain requirements of the report, something Eveloff said is a violation of protocol, he said that the Expo Authority also failed to take into account the effect the rail line would have on traffic at a number of important and heavily congested intersections, and failed to adequately address the effect it would have on emergency services already stretched thin.

“The [Metropolitan Transit Authority] said that the rail crossing is just like any other light,” said Eveloff, “but that’s not true. An ambulance can’t go through a rail-crossing when the rails down, and those few extra minutes could be the matter between life and death.”

Health and safety is a major worry for local residents, and among some of their concerns are the proximity of the proposed line to the Overland Elementary School, roughly 70 feet, and the overall safety record of the MTA. According to NFSR, the Blue line recorded its 99th fatality as of last week, and approximately its 860th accident overall.

“The MTA took a number of concerned parents to see their Gold Line and show them a stretch that runs right beside another school, just to allay any fears they might have,” said Terri Tippit, President of the NFSR, “and within two hours of them leaving, there was an accident right in front of the school.”

In response to NFSR’s intention of legal action, Monica Boin, project director of phase 2 for the Expo Construction Authority, said that they had worked in conjunction with the City of LA to decide upon which intersections should be examined and included in the FEIR. She also said that any claims on behalf of the NFSR that the Expo Authority did not examine possible alternatives to an at-grade rail-line were “totally incorrect on their part,” and added that the Expo Authority are not obligated to examine every concern raised by the public.

Regarding the general safety record of the MTA, Boin said that they are doing “everything they possibly can” to improve safety features throughout the whole operation. She also said that while the aforementioned accident was unfortunate, it was “driver error, and not mechanical error” that caused the incident.

One other issue that arose from the Expo Board meeting that ratified the FEIR, was a concern by the NFSR that SMC students were being used as political lobbyists. They said that two bus-loads of students, some of whom they claim had only a limited knowledge of the full ramifications of the line, were taken to the meeting where their presence not only painted a rather skewed picture of public opinion, but prevented many NFSR members from stating publicly their case.

However, Genevieve Bertone, project manager of Sustainability Coordination, and an integral figure in the student representation that day, said that far from using the students as political pawns, they were merely voicing the concerns of a wider group of people.

“We’re not using students for political lobbying, we were allowing stakeholders the opportunity to have an input on a project that directly affects them.

A lot of people from low-income households don’t have access to events like that. I think everybody who’s affected by the light-rail should have the opportunity to have their say.”

The 30-day deadline for a law-suit to be filed will be March 4.

OP-ED: Metro’s Expo Line plan will hurt businesses and neighborhoods in L.A.’s South-Central and Westside. (Source: )Los Angeles Business Journal Online

Los Angeles Business Journal Online - business news and information for Los Angeles California

Heavy Impact of Light Rail

OP-ED: Metro’s Expo Line plan will hurt businesses and neighborhoods in L.A.’s South-Central and Westside.

By MARK RIDLEY-THOMAS

A light-rail line, when built carefully to fit its surroundings, can create a corridor for high-value commercial and residential development.

But a train rumbling through busy intersections in front of shops, homes and schools can also condemn a community to permanent second-class status.

The Expo Line, now being constructed to eventually run from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica, is already alarming residents and business owners in both South-Central and the Westside.

That’s because the light-rail line’s planning methods call for trains to run at street level through busy intersections, including the neighborhoods surrounding Dorsey High School and the Westside Pavilion shopping mall.

Metro’s Grade Crossing Policy dictates whether a train crosses an intersection at street level, is elevated above the crossing or put underground.

Adopted in 2003, the policy favors car traffic volume in decision-making: Train tracks are slated to be built above or below streets at the intersections that move the most cars, since these are most likely to see traffic snarled by the trains.

Coincidentally, the intersections with the most car traffic – and those set to get grade-separated crossings – tend also to be in more well-off neighborhoods. Those areas tend to have vibrant commercial centers, which in turn generate car traffic.

In the low-income neighborhoods in which apartment dwellers will look straight out their front windows to see speeding trains, and where retail stores already lead a fragile existence, the rail line could become a development death sentence.

Land values can quickly be dragged down by a poorly executed rail line. If trains take up lanes previously used by cars, the area’s traffic-handling ability is reduced. When that happens, developers must downsize any new building projects to fit that lower capacity.

When running trains make it difficult for cars to drive in and out of store parking lots, or to easily make turns, a rail line can be disastrous for retailers.

Clock’s Ticking on Expo Phase II Lawsuit. Opponents Vow to Get it Filed by Next Week. (Source: Streetsblog Los Angeles)

Link: Streetsblog Los Angeles » Clock’s Ticking on Expo Phase II Lawsuit. Opponents Vow to Get it Filed by Next Week.

Clock’s Ticking on Expo Phase II Lawsuit. Opponents Vow to Get it Filed by Next Week.

by Damien Newton on February 23, 2010

The future home of Expo Light Rail? Facing East on Sepulveda and Exposition.
Photo: LA Streetsblog/Flickr

Anyone awaiting word on whether the group fighting to stop or reconfigure Phase II of the Expo Line would file lawsuit doesn't have to wait until March 6, the last day they can file to legally challenge the certification of the Environmental Impact Statement approved by the Expo Board on February 4. At a meeting of Neighbors for Smart Rail last week, the organization was collecting checks and promising from the podium that a legal filing was in the works.

Reports vary on the amount of people in attendance at last weekend vary, but range upward to 250 attendees, almost all of whom were vocal about their opposition to the line. In addition to the lawsuit, the Neighbors for Smart Rail are planning a grassroots effort to inform the community, both residences and businesses, that the Expo Line will go through West L.A. at-grade. After the jump, you can read a full summary of the meeting from the "West of Westwood Homeowner's Association" an organization that is supportive of Neighbors for Smart Rail.

I want to thank the over 250 people who attended the NFSR meeting yesterday.

It was nice to see new faces but it was concerning to see how many people STILL did not know that if we do nothing the train would be coming through at grade (street level) in 5 years. Many thought it was going below grade or around us.

Soon we will be putting up lawns signs soon to let not only the residents but also the business community know that the train is coming at grade.

We encourage you to invite your neighbors and friends to a coffee. At this informal setting they will learn what the impact of a train running through here at grade every 2 1/2 minutes will have on them. Please let us know when you will have a coffee and we will have a representative there to help you. (Please see attached flyer)

We also need people to go door to door talking one on one with their neighbors. We will be having a meeting for anyone (included those who already signed up) interested in doing this. You will receive a packet with instructions and talking points.

We will also visual demonstrate the impact on traffic on the train at grade will have on our already congested streets and how it will increasing cut-through traffic. I have been contacted by both print and TV press to ask when we will be holding our demonstration.

We will be filing our lawsuit soon. Please remember we cannot do this alone we need your support.

EVERYONE MUST HELP

We know times are challenging right now. Attached is a Donation Pledge form that will allow you to make monthly payments. You can write a check or go to smartrail.org and click donate. We are trying to make it as easy as possible for you to donate.

Because we are tax deductable we are keeping a list of who contributes what.

What is the cost of NOT increasing cut-through traffic in our community
What is the cost of having emergency vehicles able to reach you without an added delay of waiting for a train to pass
What is the cost to be able to get on to Overland, Westwood, Military and Sepulveda from our homes
What is the cost of a good night's sleep not hearing bells and whistles
What is the cost of our children's safety

PRICELESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Make a donation NOW or be ready for the impact of Expo at grade in our community.