No. 44

Alameda Corridor Lawsuits Settled

In 1997, the Alameda Corridor the celebrated $1.8 billion, high-speed railroad line designed to speed cargo from the seaports to the distribution centers near downtown L.A. finally emerged from the shadow of litigation.

Following the project’s announcement, a number of small cities along the corridor’s 20-mile route feared that construction would wreak havoc with local traffic patterns and take a toll on commercial activity. So they filed a series of lawsuits demanding mitigation of such effects.

In July, the ports of L.A. and Long Beach which are financing the bulk of the $1.8 billion project reached a $2 million settlement with the city of Huntington Park. In August, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge dismissed a separate claim by the city of Lynwood challenging the project’s environmental impact report. Also in August, the California Supreme Court dismissed a suit by the cities of Vernon, Compton, Lynwood and South Gate over mitigation issues.

Those developments have enabled the corridor to move forward. Corridor officials have begun soliciting bids from contractors to design the project; the contract is expected to be awarded in September 1998.