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Southern California Transit Advocates is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion, development and improvement of public transportation in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

SO.CA.TA comments on Expo Line crossing at Farmdale Ave.

Statement issued to the Expo Line Authority supporting staff recommendations for safety enhancements at the Farmdale Ave. crossing (near Dorsey High School) and rejecting the opponents' call for grade separation of the line.



Southern California Transit Advocates supports the proposed changes to the grade crossing at Farmdale Avenue, which will bring increased safety through the use of pedestrian gates, crossing guards, and slow operation through the crossing during the hours immediately preceding and following the Dorsey High schedule.

We are concerned that this issue has been over-exaggerated and that it has become difficult to maintain the proper perspective. Many light rail systems - notably in San Diego and Portland - operate safely with far less "protective measures" for pedestrians. We fear that considering other solutions, such as a pedestrian bridge, would reopen the environmental clearance process and endanger not only the status of previous consensus regarding the line's design (a design that we are totally in support of), but its budget and schedule. Indeed, such an action has the potential to kill the entire project.

Those opponents who demand that the line be redesigned with full grade separation are, in our view, overreacting to a perceived problem which, we believe, does not exist. To acquiesce to their unreasonable demands would jeopardize this important new link in the region's mobility.

We urge the Expo Board to move forward with the current application to the California Public Utilities Commission and resolve this matter.