Approvals given by LA Metro last year for a 1.2-mile skyway between Union Station and Dodger Stadium were struck down by an appellate court on Thursday, which ruled the gondola project needs additional environmental reviews before it can go forward.
In a lengthy opinion, the state court of appeals vacated the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and the project’s approval because LA Metro failed to adequately consider how to reduce construction noise when building a Disney-esque skyway consisting of three passenger stations, a non-passenger junction and three towers with cables supporting gondolas with up to 40 passengers each.
A billboard on Broadway near Chinatown promotes the proposed Dodger Stadium gondola project on March 20, 2024. The Los Angeles City Council on Friday, March 22, 2024 took up an item on doing a $500,000 traffic study in the area before any further actions on the gondola project could go forward. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) Metro Board Member Ara Najarian speaks about Frank McCourt’s Dodger Stadium gondola project during the Los Angeles Metro Board meeting on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) People protest Frank McCourt’s Dodger Stadium gondola project during the Los Angeles Metro Board meeting on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) Two protesters with the Stop The Gondola group hold up signs during a public hearing on the proposed aerial tram project that would link LA Union Station with Dodger Stadium and go over Chinatown. The hearing was held at Cathedral High School Gymnasium on Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. (photo by Steve Scauzillo/SCNG). Artist rendering of the gondola ride to Dodger Stadium, (Courtesy of Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit) Artist rendering of the gondola ride to Dodger Stadium, from Union Station and Chinatown/LA State Historic State Park Station. (Courtesy of Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit) Show Caption1 of 6A billboard on Broadway near Chinatown promotes the proposed Dodger Stadium gondola project on March 20, 2024. The Los Angeles City Council on Friday, March 22, 2024 took up an item on doing a $500,000 traffic study in the area before any further actions on the gondola project could go forward. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG) ExpandThe court overturned a lower court ruling and ruled LA Metro did not comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by not consulting with the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which has jurisdiction over natural and historical resources in the gondola footprint, including: the Los Angeles State Historic Park and El Pueblo de Los Ángeles, the historic area considered the birthplace of Los Angeles. The court ordered Metro to meet with the conservancy.
As a result, LA Metro must gather input from the conservancy and also prepare a supplement to its original EIR by including more public feedback, as well as noise reduction techniques that protect residents in Chinatown, Elysian Park and El Pueblo. This adds another leg of an already lengthy review process. The transit agency would have to re-approve both the new EIR documents and the project itself.
The ruling further delays the project, placing its proposed completion by the LA 2028 Summer Olympics in jeopardy. Olympic baseball is planned for Dodger Stadium in July 2028.
“We are thrilled. This is a tremendous victory. And it is the right thing to do,” said Jon Christensen, founder of the L.A. Parks Alliance, the plaintiff in the case that has strongly opposed the project on grounds it will damage historic parts of LA, add blight and traffic to neighborhoods, and intrude on the solitude and aesthetics of the LA Historic Park. Christensen is also an adjunct professor at UCLA’s Institute of Environment and Sustainability.
The Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit (LAART) project was submitted to LA Metro by L.A. Dodgers’ former owner Frank McCourt in April 2018. It received LA Metro approvals on Feb. 22, 2024. McCourt owns 50% of the parking lots at Dodger Stadium which court records show he may use for mixed-use development, including residential and retail uses; opponents say he will use the gondola as an asset for his real estate developments.
Aerial Rapid Transit Technologies (ARTT), a limited partnership that McCourt formed, was bankrolling the environmental review and preliminary design process. Last year, McCourt Global gifted the project to a new entity, Zero Emissions Transit. ZET is the nonprofit owner responsible for building, financing and operating the gondola project.
Nathan Click, spokesperson for ZET, wrote in an emailed response on Friday, May 2 that the court agreed with LA ART and LA Metro on many points, including community-wide benefits of a permanent, zero-emissions gondola project connecting Dodger Stadium with other transit options in LA, such as the A Line in Chinatown and A, B and D train lines at Union Station. Click has said the project will reduce congestion and greenhouse gases by replacing cars traveling to and from the stadium.
“The two issues where the court ordered more work to be done are minor, technical matters, which is a common part of the process for important infrastructure projects,” he wrote. “It is clear that Angelenos want and deserve efficient, sustainable transit solutions – and the public support for the Dodger Stadium gondola reflects that.”
Click did not say if more court-ordered environmental reviews and neighborhood meetings would delay the project’s permitting process and if approved, push back construction.
Christensen said it will take at least one year for ZET and LA Metro to complete the additional environmental review. Also, even if LA Metro approves a new environmental document, the project would have to travel a long road to reach a green light.
The project also will need approvals from the Los Angeles City Council, Caltrans, the Federal Highway Administration, the California Transportation Commission and California State Parks, according to LA Metro staff.
In addition, the project developer must secure property acquisitions, land leases, air rights as well as state and federal sign-offs. If these are obtained, the project will come back to the LA Metro board for construction approval. No timeframe has been set for what will be a drawn-out process.
“We are not interested in delaying the project,” Christensen said. “We are interested in people understanding the impacts. This is a bad project, a billionaire’s pet project. It is not the best solution for getting people to and from Dodger Stadium,” he concluded.
He said major construction would take about 25 months of digging up roads and historic areas in the heart of old Los Angeles. “Do we really want that right in the lead up to the Olympics?” he said.
ZET claims its riders would account for 20% to 25% of people attending any Dodger Stadium event, thus reducing traffic congestion, pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.
The controversial project has collected both support and opposition and has split the environmental community.
Dozens of Chinatown small businesses and organization and more than 15,000 Angelenos have signed petitions or wrote letters in support of the project, saying it will put people in the skyway gondolas while taking cars off their streets during 82 home baseball game days, plus dates when the stadium has concerts and other special events.
Opponents include residents of Chinatown whose neighborhoods, and in some cases, houses and backyards, would forever be changed by overhead gondolas and towers holding cables powered with humming electric motors. Neighbors have held “Stop The Gondola” rallies for the past few years.
Some conservation groups say a gondola station with cars hanging as low as 26 feet from park visitors will destroy the ambience of the Los Angeles State Historic Park. In opposition are the Los Angeles-based Sierra Club and the Friends of Elysian Park.
However, the Coalition For Clean Air supported LA Metro’s approval. In a letter last year, the group wrote: “The Environmental Impact Report found that on game days the gondola will remove up to 3,000 automobile trips, which will reduce air pollution and protect public health.”
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