I’m the president of the Buddies of Elysian Park, a volunteer group shaped within the mid-Nineteen Sixties to stop a conference middle from being constructed within the metropolis’s oldest public park. Since then, together with planting bushes and coordinating park cleanups, we’ve managed to maintain a soccer stadium, oil wells, a small-plane airport and different undesirable developments at bay.
Right now, Elysian Park is beneath menace once more, this time from a gondola proposed by Frank McCourt, former proprietor of the Dodgers, and his companion firms: Los Angeles Aerial Fast Transit, Local weather Resolve and a brand new nonprofit, Zero Emissions Transit. Their plan is to construct the LA ART gondola from Union Station to Dodger Stadium, to ferry baseball followers to the ballpark and again whereas slicing down on visitors and air air pollution.
Seems like a beautiful thought, proper? Don’t be deceived. It’s fully doable the gondola gained’t be simply a gondola. Even whether it is, it will likely be much less a dream come true than a nightmare.
McCourt’s venture is at present into consideration by Metro, the county’s transportation company, which can vote on a remaining environmental impression report maybe as quickly as this month. If the board of administrators approves it, his plans could have surmounted a primary essential hurdle.
The Buddies of Elysian Park strongly urge a no vote.
As The Occasions has reported, it’s an open secret {that a} gondola may very properly be a precursor to an enormous leisure, retail and housing complicated constructed within the stadium parking heaps, which McCourt nonetheless owns partially. Bear in mind: Almost 20 years in the past, when he owned the crew, McCourt unveiled simply such a plan.
Think about gondola riders — and automobiles — streaming out and in of a improvement much like downtown’s L.A. Reside, in any respect hours, 12 months a yr. Elysian Park would not be Elysian Park, and the neighborhoods round it might even be irrevocably modified.
Even with out the parking-lot complicated, LA ART would have a giant, damaging impression. The plans, as spelled out within the remaining EIR, name for a futuristic, elevated passenger platform on the Union Station terminus. Constructed on pillars over the center of Alameda Road throughout from El Pueblo de Los Angeles, the construction would obscure Union Station’s lovely Mission Revival entrance and overshadow El Pueblo, the historic middle of L.A.
One other huge “intermediate” station can be constructed on the southernmost entrance to Los Angeles State Historic Park, which commemorates the traditional web site of a Tongva village, the campsite of the primary Spanish missionaries in California, and a railway that delivered 1000’s of immigrants to L.A. Business actions in state parks are prohibited, aside from the “security, consolation and delight” of park guests; and in historic parks, such actions have to be related to the historical past at hand. Does a gondola hovering overhead meet the factors? LA ART would clear one hill in Los Angeles State Historic Park by a mere 26 ft; greater than 80 mature bushes must go.
In Chinatown, the 5-ton gondola automobiles — carrying about 40 riders every and almost certainly embellished with logos to assist cowl the venture’s estimated $500-million price ticket — would move simply 50 ft above properties and residences. Suspended on cables from huge 200-foot towers, the tram would observe Bishops Highway previous Radio Hill into the stadium car parking zone.
As soon as operational, based on the EIR, the gondola may run year-round, from 6 a.m. till midnight. Ask your self this: Why even ponder such a schedule if the gondola is generally meant to ship followers to and from Dodger Stadium for 90-some dwelling and playoff video games throughout baseball season?
The remaining EIR particularly suggests that the gondola must be evaluated strictly as a transportation venture. Metro “is just not required to investigate a broader scheme or attribute a motive” to the plan past constructing a gondola.
In our view, the ultimate EIR subverts the best way an environmental evaluate is meant to work.
For instance, the California Environmental High quality Act requires that environmental impression stories analyze each a part of a venture’s design. But the doc Metro will vote on defers the examine of the gondola’s impression on Los Angeles SHP; it’s to be achieved later, by California State Parks.
CEQA additionally requires a good-faith examine of possible options, and, sure, the ultimate EIR considers reconfiguring Dodger Stadium Specific buses, which now run from Union Station on sport days. However the comparability assumes so many constraints on the bus various that it appears designed to fall brief. (A sturdy countywide park-and-ride program works properly for the Hollywood Bowl.)
Lastly, CEQA requires that tasks aren’t thought of piecemeal, with separate EIRs. However given the robust chance that McCourt’s gondola will open the door to extra improvement within the stadium parking heaps, the ultimate EIR hardly appears remaining in any respect.
An aerial speedy transit venture from Union Station to Dodger Stadium appears like a cheerful reply to Los Angeles’ visitors woes and sport day gridlock. Till you look extra carefully. As a Trojan horse for large improvement in Elysian Park, it’s a horrible thought.
Philip Murphy is the president of the Buddies of Elysian Park.
