Derailing L.A.
Damien Goodmon and his plan to halt the Expo Line
By Greg Katz
Damien Goodmon stands on the sidewalk a few feet from the railroad tracks next to Dorsey High School and looks like a prosecutor about to prove his case in court. He stops talking about underpasses and overpasses and environmental racism long enough to soak in the scene. Classes have ended for the day and dozens of students crowd onto the sidewalk, some overflowing into the street. A few rowdy types push one another in the playful chaos that marks the end of the school day. Goodmon believes the daily exodus at the South L.A. school nails his case: It will be impossible to keep students out of the path of the Expo Line light-rail trains when they start running some 50 feet north of the campus in a couple of years.
Maybe he’s got a point. Or, more likely, his concerns about safety are addressed by a redesigned intersection that calls for an expansive pedestrian waiting area and double gates and a human crossing guard standing watch during school hours while the trains lumber by at slow speeds.
And, just as likely, this is about more than Dorsey High School.
Goodmon’s goals go beyond making this the safest possible crossing. A grassroots political organizer who oversaw the youth vote for Wesley Clark in 2004, he insists that he’s not out to derail light rail. But his critics believe that his tactics could kill the Expo Line project. He wants to halt the project in its current form and place the
L.A.-Culver City line underground. Along the way, he’s aligned himself with remnants of some of the same ugly forces that have impeded mass transit since racism and fears about people of color flooding into Westside neighborhoods stopped the Red Line subway in the 1980s.
Whatever is going on here at the corner of Farmdale Avenue and Exposition Boulevard, it threatens to get messier for the first phase of the line already taking shape downtown, from the Seventh Street station, where it will share tracks with the Blue Line, to Culver City, roughly following the Exposition right-of-way used by freight trains starting in the late 1800s. Work is well underway on the line shooting down the middle of Exposition Boulevard, between USC and the Natural History Museum.
The dispute over the Dorsey crossing carries some of the same burdens that have weighed heavily on the past three decades of L.A.’s transit history. The forces of racism blamed for the broken network of public transportation crop up here. When the idea of the Expo Line first emerged in the 1980s, project planners faced death threats from Westside residents. In the affluent Cheviot Hills, some residents objected to the train running along the perimeter of their neighborhood, even though the drone of the nearby freeway fills the air. Some of these residents want the Expo Line, in its second phase, to bypass their community and take an out-of-the way route along Venice and Sepulveda boulevards, before eventually reaching Santa Monica. It’s as though residents fear people of color will invade their neighborhoods, stealing their widescreen TVs before returning home on an eastbound train. Today, more Cheviot Hills residents favor the Expo Line than decades ago, but an exact route for Phase Two of the project, from Culver City to Santa Monica, has yet to be decided.
The Public Utilities Commission, which has yet to sign off on the Dorsey crossing, will likely schedule full-blown evidentiary hearings next month to figure out if the street-level crossing there now must be changed.
“It’s very safe,” said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has made improving public transportation in Los Angeles a priority of his administration. “I recognize there are a lot of concerns about it and that’s natural whenever you have children and young people at school. There might be some adjustments made. But it’s as safe as the Gold Line. There was a lot of concern when the Gold Line was built.”
Goodmon is getting some traction with at least the part of his spiel that pertains to Dorsey. People in power are listening to him. He got L.A. Unified to take a stand against the crossing, and says his strongest ally is school board member Marguerite LaMotte, who calls the crossing a case of environmental racism. Goodmon says he has no allies on the Expo Line governing board, though the board last week approved a $250,000 study to examine ways to redesign the Dorsey crossing. The least expensive option calls for walling off the entire street and building a pedestrian bridge over the tracks. Also to be considered are a tunnel and an overpass. Of course, none of those alternatives will satisfy Goodmon, who wants the entire project built underground.
The Expo Board, fearing that they’ll get sued whatever they do, vanished behind closed doors last week to discuss the issues and reemerged 45 minutes later to unanimously vote in favor of the environmental study. Goodmon and his supporters cheered when Vice-Chairman Herb Wesson announced that the study would explore the costly underground alternative. Putting the tracks underground could cost more than $100 million and end up killing the project. Anything less will not satisfy Goodmon. “Even if they came up with $25 million for an overpass, it would not address the noise and vibration standards,” he says. “I say find a little more and build an underpass.”
If Goodmon gets what he wants, the Expo light-rail line could turn into a short, deformed version of the 8.8-mile link now planned to end in Culver City. The line would go only so far as it could stretch in a trench until money ran out. Goodmon says he would help the Expo governing board lobby for more government money to finish the project.
Goodmon grew up in South L.A. and graduated from Loyola High School. He played football for one year at the University of Washington and returned home when his stepfather died. After the 2004 election, he signed on to a project examining the youth vote for a semester at Harvard University. “Could I have gotten into Harvard and finished there? Yeah,” says Goodmon, a thin African-American man, with tufts of facial hair. “I could have got in.”
While in Cambridge, he became a fan of commuter trains. “I saw the value a rail system could have on an area.” Soon after returning home he found himself at his first community meeting on the Expo Line project.
He knows some opponents of the light rail line are racists, and that they espouse hateful views that people of color will invade their communities or that property values will decline with greater mobility. “They’re few and far between and none of them are in our leadership. People have their own reasons for supporting or opposing this. What we’ve been able to do is find a position that everybody can get behind. I’m not concerned about who supports this outside my community, to be honest. When you’re in a war, you have to take whatever allies you can get.”
Goodmon speaks passionately and draws from a sheath of documents to make his points, most of which are against the Expo Line in its current state. But he’s got a fairly straightforward way of judging anyone who might share an opinion on the project: “If you can’t help us, shut up and get out of our way.”
Published: 02/13/2008
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Comments
I haven't really decided how I stand on this issue. In a perfect world the community activists get their way and the subway is sunken (not underground like a subway, but in a trench), and the line gets built. It would actually make a better system that way. So more power to them for fighting the good fight.
However my only point to raise about the post above and about the emotional tactics both sides use, is that we are talking about High School students, not "children". I don't want to see any accidents happen, but we are talking about a group of people many of whom are elegible to drive, so they should be qualified to navigate a rail crossing.
Oh yeah, and the "Sheaf of papers that Damien Goodmon carries around does contain a lot of relevant data about past actions that back up a charge of environmental racism (intentional or otherwise). However his demeanor "You're either with us or against us" doesn't exactly win over friends either.
Light rail lines currently traverse hundreds of miles in many cities across the country. Pedestrian safety statistics show that at-grade rail crossings are no more dangerous than your average intra urban crosswalk. Why doesn
Light rail lines currently traverse hundreds of miles in many cities across the country. Pedestrian safety statistics show that at-grade rail crossings are no more dangerous than your average intra urban crosswalk. Why doesn
n
Goodman puff up and voice his discontent with every road expansion near a school in the south side. I mean some of these roads are massive (8+ lane giving you about 2.3 seconds to reach the other side)
If these High School
Why wont this damn thing post my FULL COMMENT!!
If these High School "Children" who can themselves have children, vote, and drive a 5 ton vehicle are not capable of seeing and moving when a lumbering train moving @ 15-20 MPH approaches, then i say GOOD!... we need to thin out the herd anyway. kidding aside, the expo line is a good thing not just for the immediate residents, but for the region, roads and environment as a whole.
No matter how many numerous times I have encountered them, I find comments like from CityMe very disturbing. She/he is the typical racist/classist Cheviot Hills NIMBY who thinks she/he can still derail the Expo Line.
The Westside (by which I am referring to the region from Downtown to Santa Monica) desperately needs rail transportation. Modern rail transportation is very safe and exists everywhere in the country and world except the Westside.
Light-rail is the form of modern transportation that, unlike the subway (heavy-rail), integrates perfectly with the environment, without creating a safety hazard.
The Expo corridor has been built as a rail-transportation corridor in 1875, and with its mix of suburban and urban elements, it probably offers the best opportunity for a modern light-rail line in the entire world.
There is no good reason to bury this beautiful light-rail line underground. The whole concept here is the "transit parkway," a light-rail line that runs along pedestrian and bicycle paths and encourages alternative forms of transportation. Who would like to commute in a dark subway, given the alternative choice of surface rail in Southern California?
Clint Simmons doesn't want to see this line built because he has a house adjacent to the line west of La Brea. Damien Goodmon wants this line to be buried underground because he is paranoid that the second, western phase of the line will be built to higher standards. He is the guy who started playing the race card, but in my opinion, he is one of the most racist people around in this game. He can
(continued)
Clint Simmons doesn't want to see this line built because he has a house adjacent to the line west of La Brea. Damien Goodmon wants this line to be buried underground because he is paranoid that the second, western phase of the line will be built to higher standards. He is the guy who started playing the race card, but in my opinion, he is one of the most racist people around in this game. He can
(continued)
Damien can
We so desperately need the Expo line to be built ASAP, no matter what color you are, no matter where you live along the line. Mid-City and Westside areas are in total gridlock in morning and evening rush-hours. We finally have a project that will give us needed relief and now some weird group is trying to sabotage it. Just what we need!
Is there
Is there
Is there environmental racism along the alignment? NO! Why is it that the Eastside extension of the Gold Line is currently being constructed at-grade within 50 feet of Ramona High School and is applauded by the community? But in the mid-city area, it
But in the mid-city area, its tagged as environmental racism being built next to Dorsey High. I just don not get it.
Funny how Goodman doesn't say a word that once the kids cross those big evil tracks they face a much more dangerous problem: the road with drivers that don't pay attention and trucks flying by. Why isn't Goodman demanding the highway be eliminated or put in a subway?
Damien, you gave away the whole game.
"I'm not concerned about who supports this outside my community."
Well, I have news for you. You don't live only that one community. You live in the city and the county of Los Angeles. And so I do. And I won't have you destroying mass transit (again) for the county of Los Angeles, which, in case you didn't know is made up of more than one neighborhood.
Mass transit has to be planned on a large scale. You, of all people, the originator of getlamoving.com, should take that to heart, rather than parochial concerns, which have already been addressed.
You're no better than those crabby old people in Cheviot Hills.
Hands off my transit system, and L.A. County's transit system.
I agree. Those children who are stupid enough to get in front of a train when it's crossing need to get weeded out of the gene pool. (And there are many stupid children who will purposely do this. We have posters admonishing this type of behavior on the NYC subway to prove this.) Look at Friedberg, Germany whose rail lines run above ground. Does anyone jump in front of them? No, probably not because they don't care for the injury, even though they have national health care! So, first, Damien, you and your constituents need to be selfless. Before blaming and complaining, why don't you come up with viable answers for the City, perhaps raise the money first before proposing an underground project? It's easy to point the finger when you're not doing the work.
Here is a good example of a solution looking for a problem. Daimin Goodmon a neighborhood activist that is looking for a cause to gain political recognition and is making a big deal out of nothing. He has cost us $250,000.00 to start.
The grade separations at USC, La Brea, LA Cenega and Culver City have many thousands of cars passing an hour with complicated intersections. If not separated there would be traffic delays even with only a 30 second period with the gates down as the cars passed. This is not the case at the Dorsey crossing.
Is Daimin trying to tell us that the students are not smart enough to stay out of the way of an approaching train even with gates blocking their way? Somehow the students have figured out how to stay out of the street when cars are coming. Theses are bright High School students, give them some credit and not use them as pawns to gain political power.
There are many other surface LRT lines that pass schools and somehow the line does not put at risk the students anymore than crossing a street.
The MTA, the construction authority and the PUC had it right the first time with allowing an at grade crossing. Even if the money were there a grade separation should not be built
Given the clear and outrageous slant presented by the author, it makes me wonder if he is on the Expo payroll.
Not only does the author try to play the race card when it doesn't exist (except in his mind), he ignores the horrible safety record of streetlevel light rail in L.A.
On Racism: The author has chosen to dredge up one comment by one person... 20 years ago. The FACT is that communities up and down the expo line are concerned for the safety of their children and the horrible impacts on traffic that an at-grade expo line would have. If the author had actually done ANY research, he would have found that racism just doesn't play a part. He would have found that we are all working together. Even though that wouldn't have made the article quite as "interesting," it would have been the truth.
On Solutions: $1,600,000,000. That's one hell of a lot of money to pay for a project that will put kids at risk and act as a roadblock on our streets. That's one hell of a lot of money to spend when we are told we don't have any money to spend. Why not dedicate that money to a maglev system that runs ON the 10, will cost about the same, not harm neighborhoods and not put kids at risk? Why not dedicate those scarce resources to the Wilshire subway?
The author has clearly been wooed by the elected officials who want to look like they are doing SOMETHING about traffic. Unfortunately, those elected officials will be long gone by the time the Expo line starts hurting kids and blocking traffic.
The slant the author has missed is WHY the Expo line is being pushed so hard. The answer: Property owners and develoeprs along the line are looking to make millions once the line goes past their property. Given our elected official's fondness for developer contributions, it all starts to become clear.
Citybeat: Why not try to find a reporter who can report the facts and not make up his or her own to fit a pre-conceived and poorly supported case for the expo line.
Congratulations to Mr. Goodmon for going out to build alliances throughout the city to protect our neighborhoods and to protect our kids from an ill-conceived project.
The author owes him an apology and owes the public the real story.