WHITTIER GREENWAY TRAIL TRANSIT PLAN DERAILED

 

 

 

NEWS FROM DON KNABE

Supervisor, Fourth District

County of Los Angeles

822 Hahn Hall of Administration

 

 

 

        FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

 

 Contact:         David A. Sommers

                                                                                                   (213) 974-1095

                                                                                                   (213) 453-6446 (cell) 

 

WHITTIER GREENWAY TRAIL TRANSIT PLAN DERAILED

 

LOS ANGELES, August 20, 2009 – Light rail trains will not be running down the middle of the Whittier Greenway Trail in the future, Supervisor Don Knabe announced today.

 

Metro has started work on the Eastside Transit Corridor Phase 2 project that would extend the Gold Line light rail system to cities further east of Los Angeles, including Whittier. One of the four routes under consideration for the future light rail extension would have included running tracks down the middle of the Whittier Greenway Trail.

 

Metro will be abandoning any further consideration of the Greenway Trail option after significant community opposition and the opposition by Supervisor Knabe, who serves as First Vice Chair of Metro’s Board of Directors. In addition, technical analysis indicates that the route has several fatal flaws that renders it infeasible for construction.

 

“I am adamantly opposed to any Gold Line track alignment that would come anywhere near the Greenway Trail,” said Supervisor Knabe.

 

“Having train tracks run down the middle of the trail was not what I had in mind when committed $100,000 in public park funds towards the project, and it is not what supporters of the Greenway Trail had in mind either. The expansion of mass transit options in the area is critically needed, given our congested roads and expected 25-percent increase in local population in the next two decades, but we can't expand mass transit at the expense of parks and open space."

 

The Greenway Trail is a five-mile bicycle/pedestrian trail which replaces an abandoned railroad right-of-way. The trail was dedicated in January 2009 and begins in the northwest corner of Whittier, near the 605 Freeway.

 

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