Damaging a hard-won park
Re “Hurdles loom for gondola proposal,” Jan. 10
Metro’s opaque deal with former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt to build a gondola to Dodger Stadium through L.A. State Historic Park would severely compromise people’s experience of the park, a taxpayerfunded green space that the area’s historically underserved residents fought for decades to establish.
The gondola would take public park land, destroy 81 mature trees, permanently alter the park’s thoughtfully designed vistas, jeopardize park event revenues and vital maintenance, and threaten the park’s significant historic features.
These impacts on the park would be an environmental injustice. L.A. State Historic Park was born from an outpouring of community activism that transformed a rail yard into a green urban oasis, with all of the related health and community benefits. It is well used by residents, neighbors and visitors from throughout the city and has also become a vital, climate-resilient native landscape supporting local wildlife.
A project such as this would never be proposed over New York’s Central Park, so why should the residents of Northeast L.A. be subjected to it? Kathleen Johnson
Los Angeles The writer is executive director of Los Angeles River State Park Partners.
In 2018, we visited La Paz, Bolivia, which has a gondola transit system. The gondolas were phenomenal — quiet and efficient. We learned that they are fast and comparatively inexpensive to put up and get running.
When we got home, we realized that this would be a great system for L.A. How much cheaper and faster would it be instead finishing the subway down Wilshire Boulevard, which will take years to be operational?
But looks like L.A. might not even put one up to Dodger Stadium because of environmentalists and people who “fear” gentrification, not to mention lawsuits and bureaucracy.
Dafni Black Culver City