Local Subway Tunnel Plan Released

Metro officials have released the final Environmental Impact Report for a proposed light $1.44 billion rail tunnel across downtown Los Angeles, which would allow trains from the San Gabriel Valley to reach the Westside, and connect rails from Long Beach to Union Station.

The proposed "Regional Connector" study looked at several alternatives, including a ``no-build'' and surface train options in the busy Civic Center and Bunker Hill areas.

Written public comments are being accepted for the next month, and two public hearings will be held to explain the options and gather written public opinions about the project.

The preferred alternative does not include changes suggested by prominent downtown booster Eli Broad, who had asked that one subway stop be moved to the top of Bunker Hill.

Broad also urged that the line zig-zag northeast from Second Street to First Street east of Bunker Hill, across a vacant lot next to the Los Angeles Times building.

The Metro board has already expressed preference for a 1.9 mile underground tunnel up Flower Street from the existing northern dead end of the Blue and Expo lines at Seventh Street.

The new tunnel would curve east under Bunker Hill's Second Street car tunnel, and emerge in Little Tokyo to connect to existing Gold Line tracks at First and Alameda streets.

The latest version of the plan would have trains remain in a subway below the intersection of First and Alameda streets, as suggested by citizens at public hearings last year.

The revised plan would have the tunnel fork to allow trains to pass to and from tracks in both directions on the Gold Line, towards either Pasadena or East Los Angeles.

And the newest version also includes leaving room in the Flower Street tunnel for a potential underground station at Fourth Street, a station that was dropped from the earlier plan to save initial construction money.

An underground electrical station and a ``pocket track'' to hold empty trains would also be located below Flower at Fourth streets.

Funding for the rail tunnel would come from a half-cent sales tax levy approved by L.A. County voters in 2008, which will raise $40 billion for freeway and transit projects over 30 years.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been campaigning for Congress to loan that money to local transit projects now, to allow them to be built as construction prices are lower.

The EIR also looks at a cheaper alternative, which would bring the tracks to the surface along Second Street, turn north past City Hall, and then head east on Temple Street to the Gold Line. That plan has already been rejected by the Metro Board of Directors as being costly and disruptive to traffic.

If completed, the tunnel would tie together two halves of the region's light rail train system. The nation's most-heavily used light rail train route, the Blue Line, would be linked to Union Station, as would be the new Expo Line to Culver City, and eventually Santa Monica.

The tunnel would also allow trains to run from near LAX on the just- approved Crenshaw Line to Union Station, and then east on the Gold Line extension proposed to connect to Ontario International Airport.

The plan will be explained at open houses from 2-3:30 p.m. Feb. 7 at the Coburn School of Music, 200 S. Grand Ave., and from 6:30-8 p.m. Feb. 8 at the Japanese American National Museum, 369 E. First Street. The EIR can be downloaded here.

This version of the story corrects an earlier error City News Service made in the title of the study.