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Post by metrocenter on Nov 2, 2010 7:33:28 GMT -8
This is just my guess, but I think Yaroslavsky knows these people are nuts, but wants to reassure them by requesting additional study of the tunnel under the school.
Surely Zev is doing some political fence-sitting as well. He has been truly non-committal on the issue, which ultimately lets him jump in either direction should the subway gain or lose support over the next year.
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Post by LAofAnaheim on Nov 2, 2010 8:12:16 GMT -8
If they can find another way to Constellation to avoid the high school; I'm sure Yaraslov will support it and I could care two s***s less if that happens. As long as we get to Constellation and BH doesn't change their tone (oh, you can't go under the church now, oh you can't dig under homes now, oh you can't dig under our fire house, blah blah blah).
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Post by James Fujita on Nov 2, 2010 14:42:25 GMT -8
Subways do try to follow streets rather than pass under buildings; it's just easier that way, and the land already belongs to the government (city/ state/ county), so less of a hassle with the eminent domain issues.
However, even the Red Line already passes under buildings in downtown Los Angeles; just look at the curve between 7th/Metro and Pershing Square or the curve between Civic Center and Union Station.
Subways under colleges shouldn't pose a problem at all. University campuses in the United States tend to sprawl, and the San Diego Trolley tunnels under SDSU with no problem.
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Post by metrocenter on Nov 4, 2010 14:59:34 GMT -8
Via Curbed LA: a pretty cool map showing the oil fields of Los Angeles in 1906. The map is located here. Interestingly, the Red Line passes through L.A.'s main swath of former oil fields in the area that is now Koreatown. Although they did have problems with methane when they were building the subway, so far as I know they haven't had any problems since.
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Post by metrocenter on Nov 9, 2010 13:55:38 GMT -8
Richard Lee Abrams has posted his latest blather on citywatchla. This guy has seriously gone of the deep end. Los Angeles Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Subways Threaten LA’s Residential Character CALL ME OLD FASHIONED BUT … Richard Lee Abrams
Who wants to give up their cherished myths? The medieval Church preferred to condemn Galileo as a heretic rather than look through his telescope. In the 1950's, people tried to murder heart surgeons due to the myth that the soul rests in the heart and open heart surgery was a sacrilege. Now some people long for the return of the Los Angeles’ Red Car, unaware that as far back as 1915, Angelenos found them to be a menace. The myths about the wonderfulness of Red Cars and the present day desire to construct more subways overlook how much we disliked the Red Cars, the subway, and their excessive costs.
99% of present day Angelenos do not know we had a subway, which went out of business because we Angelenos wouldn’t use it. Constructed in 1925, it ceased operation in 1955. In the 1967, the City had the subway cavern beneath Bunker Hill filled with dirt. Around 2006, the Subway Terminal Building at 417 South Hill was turned into apartments.
The 1925 Subway was constructed despite the 1915 Traffic Study which explained the huge negatives with subways in Los Angeles. No, the problems had nothing to do with earthquakes or gas explosions. There are certain mathematical relationships, such as geometric layout of the city (narrow rectangle v wide circle), cost of operation per passenger, proximity subway stations to rider ship (½ mi), population density required to make operation affordable, etc. When one understands the math of the situation, one sees that the proposed subway system is a scam to fleece tax payers while destroying the City’s residential character.
(1)Subways have daily operating costs, including costs associated with having unionized workers to run and maintain the system.
(2) Subways require a densely packed population. As the 1915 L.A. Traffic Study noted, “Density of population, then, is a prime necessity for profitable operation of sub-surface transit lines.” (Pg 22)
(3) Circular cities with extensive single family neighborhoods, like Los Angeles, cannot support the high cost of subway operation.
The 1915 Traffic Study also noted, “The great advantage possessed by Los Angeles, or any other city of the radial type, in being an aggregation of one-family houses, becomes a disadvantage when the development of a costly means of transportation is concerned.” (Pg 22)
The Subway Dilemma In other words, we Angelenos can have a nice residential city or we can have subways, but we cannot have both.
Low density residences are incompatible with subways due to the subways’ financial need for mega-density. Central Hollywood already is denser than Hong Kong or Singapore, and yet the Hollywood Community Plan wants to Manhattanize Hollywood (ca. 66,000 ppl per sq mi) in order to make the Hollywood subway pay for itself. Also, the CRA dumps truckloads of cash into the developers who construct the high rises, e.g. 1601 N. Vine, the W Hotel. The quality of life in Hollywood nose dives, while developers’ bank accounts skyrocket.
Angelenos have a choice - family homes or subways.
The Politicians’ Solution – Raise Taxes The 1915 Traffic Study also noted that a possible alternative to devastating the residential neighborhoods, i.e. increase taxes to pay for the additional costs associated with operating subways. See how quickly City Hall solves the dilemma – they raise our taxes.
Angelenos have already increased the sales tax by 1% just to build a few miles of subway. No one seems to have calculated the total sales tax increase required to construct and operate an entire subway system.
An additional 5% in local sales taxes is not unreasonable for a system that will cost $2 Trillion to construct and will cover over 5,000 sq miles. That would give Angelenos a total local sales tax of 14%.
Increasing Subway Fares Results in Higher Taxes The 1915 Traffic Study discussed another option to a perpetual tax subsidies – increase the subway fares.
The Study quickly added that increasing fares is an illusory solution -- as fares increase, usage drops which means revenues decrease, which then requires tax subsidies to keep the system solvent. It’s similar to the DWP’s telling us we have to use less water. When we use less water, the DWP raises our rates because its revenues dropped. Duh!
The more Angelenos depend on subways, the more the bargaining leverage the unions garner. Interestingly, the same politicians who made sweetheart deals with every union pension under the sun fully support subways. It would have been nice if Angelenos had a DWP Watchdog before its pension give-ways.
Perhaps Angelenos should think ahead and decide how many trillions of dollars they want to fork over to transportation unions.
The Evil Inherent in Subways By the immutable laws of math, subways will destroy our City’s residential character. We know that we will not increase our sales tax to even 11%, let alone to 14%. Thus, we will foolishly chose mega-density, pretending that destroying someone else’s neighborhood a couple miles away won’t harm us.
While it is possible that we will wise up and do what we did to the first subway fiasco (close it down and fill it with dirt), by that time arrives irreparable harm will have been done to our city.
The MTA does not conceal the plans for the mega-densification. The Westside Extension calls for mixed-used high rises along the Wilshire Corridor sufficient to house the equivalent of 225 linear miles of R-1 homes. When one realizes that Beverly Hills exempts itself from adding residential high-rises, that means those additional housing units have to be squeezed into about 6 square miles. Ditto for every other subway route.
Mega-Density Destroys the City’s Tax Base- As population density increases, productive people flee Los Angeles. L.A. County, which is the State’s most densely populated county, has been experiencing this exodus for 20 years.
After WW II, homeowners fled the urban cores, and today’s excessive density is doing the same thing to Los Angeles. As productive people continue to leave an over-crowded LA, the poor, uneducated and unskilled will be left to shoulder an ever increasing tax burden.
Despite the grandiose fantasies of city planners, they cannot tie people to the land like Russian serfs.
And then there is the most important question – Since traffic congestion will decrease by 30% if we do not build subways, why build it?
CityWatch Vol 8 Issue 89 Pub: Nov 9, 2010
Copyright 2005 - 2007 Citywatchla . Powered by Linealmedia.com
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Post by rubbertoe on Nov 9, 2010 14:20:41 GMT -8
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Post by metrocenter on Nov 9, 2010 15:15:13 GMT -8
I think he might be one of these people saying everything will be done with virtual presence in the future. This completely unsupportable claim highlights the kind of fantasy world in which this guy is living.
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Post by matthewb on Nov 9, 2010 15:57:19 GMT -8
I think he might be one of these people saying everything will be done with virtual presence in the future. This completely unsupportable claim highlights the kind of fantasy world in which this guy is living. Yes, he's one of those crazy virtual presence people. We're all going to spend the future in our sprawling suburban enclaves without ever seeing anyone in person. We'll get our food delivered to us and never leave the house.
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Post by metrocenter on Nov 9, 2010 16:25:47 GMT -8
Yes, he's one of those crazy virtual presence people. We're all going to spend the future in our sprawling suburban enclaves without ever seeing anyone in person. We'll get our food delivered to us and never leave the house. What shocks me is that anyone would think this vision of the future is a good thing. Yes I don't like my freeway commute, and yes sometimes the thought of working in my pajamas sounds appealing. But stay at home every day? I think it would be very lonely. I think you'd have to be pretty anti-social to look forward to that kind of future. So much of work involves being directly in front of people. Even with white collar work, remote meetings never work as well as in-person meetings. And forget about blue-collar work. Are the maids, construction workers, and gardeners going to telecommute as well? Not to mention teachers, dentists, doctors? Really, the only people who can benefit from "virtual presence" -- for instance, writers -- can already take advantage of it now.
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Post by wad on Nov 10, 2010 5:49:05 GMT -8
Yes, he's one of those crazy virtual presence people. We're all going to spend the future in our sprawling suburban enclaves without ever seeing anyone in person. We'll get our food delivered to us and never leave the house. Sorry, but the meatspace is here to stay.
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Post by trackman on Nov 10, 2010 6:25:18 GMT -8
I think society has by-and-large moved on from the beliefs forwarded by Richard Lee.
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Post by wad on Nov 11, 2010 5:22:21 GMT -8
Really, the only people who can benefit from "virtual presence" -- for instance, writers -- can already take advantage of it now. Also, remember that if a job doesn't require someone to show up in an office, it means that it can be done anywhere -- especially in the half of the world where people live on less than $2 a day.
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Post by Gokhan on Nov 16, 2010 20:15:50 GMT -8
In Season 21 Episode 14 of Simpsons aired on March 14, 2010, Bart Simpson destroys Springfield Elementary by running the abandoned subway. Any coincidence with the Beverly Hills High School opposition to the subway? Click on the picture below to access the video and scroll to the 15:00 minutes for the subway adventure: Note that the subway train is also curiously painted in the Pacific Electric paint scheme (this photo showing a Santa Monica via Air Line [Expo Line] car pulling from the 8th St freight yard):
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Post by James Fujita on Nov 19, 2010 14:56:06 GMT -8
Wow, Springfield has both an abandonned monorail AND an "ancient" abandoned subway line? ;D We know the story behind the monorail, but Springfield's supposed to be a small, suburban town... when was it ever large enough for underground trains? [ Abandoned subway systems are actually sort of rare... yes, abandoned stations and tracks are more common... but to my knowledge, only a couple of cities have completely abandoned their subways. Cincinnati has a half-finished tunnel, and Rochester, NY had something of an underground streetcar line similar to Los Angeles. So Springfield is in a small fraternity ;D ] I haven't watched the Simpsons on a regular basis in ages. BTW, the fun with the subway really starts at about 15:00 or so, when Bart's joyride causes tremblors. [EDIT: More info. than anybody should need on the Springfield subwayAnd yeah, that train is definately a Red Car. Maybe Springfield borrowed trains from the Pacific Electric...
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Post by Gokhan on Nov 19, 2010 16:02:03 GMT -8
Thanks! I had missed the beginning of the subway adventure.
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Post by darrell on Nov 19, 2010 16:15:15 GMT -8
Now we know where Beverly Hills's Purple Line fears come from! The Springfield Subway System is an abandoned underground railway network running beneath Springfield. Although the trains are functional, they are no longer in use, due to the damage caused to buildings by the tremors of the moving train. The tracks pass underneath Springfield Elementary School, and caused severe damage to the structure of the building when Bart and Milhouse operated one of the trains.
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Post by wad on Nov 20, 2010 6:05:50 GMT -8
Wow, Springfield has both an abandonned monorail AND an "ancient" abandoned subway line? ;D And don't get on the number 22 bus. Lisa found out the hard way and regrets not getting out at ... umm, Springfield's Pico/Rimpau.
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Post by rubbertoe on Nov 20, 2010 8:10:12 GMT -8
Wow, Springfield has both an abandonned monorail AND an "ancient" abandoned subway line? ;D We know the story behind the monorail, but Springfield's supposed to be a small, suburban town... Well, it turns out that the new Governor that was elected didn't want to waste the $75,000 annual operating expense to run the new 27 mile long subway. So as soon as the $4,000,000,000 project was completed, and train testing was finished, he ordered it to never be opened. When the federal government demanded their $3,500,000,000 contribution be repaid in full, it presented quite a challenge. But being an "out of the box" creative thinker, he decided to rip out all the portions of the new subway that could be sold off for scrap. This generated about $2,000,000 which the new administration trumpeted as a great achievement. They were being "fiscally responsible" in starting to pay back the "extremely wasteful" $3,500,000,000 in federal matching funds the federal government provided for the subway instead of spending it on the new 7 level highway interchange which would have alleviated trafic on the just completed 6 level highway interchange. When asked how he intended to pay off the remaining $3,498,000,000, he responded that the only prudent way to do this would be to cut taxes on those making over $500,000 per year, permanently. And then in a burst of conservative brilliance, decided that proactively rebating 10 years of tax cuts in advance to the wealthiest portion of the population would "jumpstart" the repayment process even quicker. This action produced an unprecedented wave of popularity for the new Governor. The talk shows even said that he was being mentioned as a possible "presidential contender" in the upcoming tea party primary. Thats why the Springfield subway was never opened. RT
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Post by erict on Nov 20, 2010 8:27:08 GMT -8
Sounds familiar to me
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Post by metrocenter on Nov 21, 2010 17:09:03 GMT -8
Wow, Springfield has both an abandonned monorail AND an "ancient" abandoned subway line? ;D We know the story behind the monorail, but Springfield's supposed to be a small, suburban town... Well, it turns out that the new Governor that was elected didn't want to waste the $75,000 annual operating expense to run the new 27 mile long subway. So as soon as the $4,000,000,000 project was completed, and train testing was finished, he ordered it to never be opened. Brilliant! If only all of out "politicians" could be so "fiscally responsible". LOL
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Post by wad on Nov 22, 2010 5:36:36 GMT -8
So Springfield is in Wisconsin or Ohio? That explains a lot.
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Post by Gokhan on Nov 22, 2010 9:43:01 GMT -8
So Springfield is in Wisconsin or Ohio? That explains a lot. Springfield is wherever they want it to be. In some episodes it's a Midwestern town, in others Los Angeles, etc. They never tell what state it's in. The events in Simpsons is usually inspired by real-life events or movies or other TV shows. For example Pacific Electric was obviously one of the inspirations behind this. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the writers of this episode was directly familiar with the Beverly Hills opposition to the Westside subway. They all live in LA naturally. The monorail episode was a classic one.
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Post by James Fujita on Nov 22, 2010 16:11:02 GMT -8
Springfield really does have a bad habit of moving around. And they have everything from a Wile E. Coyote-esque gorge to an international airport, to a casino (for a while), waterfront district with lighthouse, nearby resort spa, ethnic neighborhoods.... maybe Springfield is large enough for a subway ;D Besides Hollywood, one area of the nation which has had a huge influence on Springfield is Portland, Ore., Matt Groening's hometown. Lovejoy, Rainier Wolfcastle, Skinner, Quimby, Montgomery Burns, etc. are streets, towns, mountains near there. Of course, Groening left Portland before MAX or the streetcar, so no light rail in Springfield.... yet
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Post by metrocenter on Nov 22, 2010 16:32:16 GMT -8
"I've sold monorails to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook. And, by gum, it put them on the map!"
But that's small potatoes...I'll bet Capital City has a great transit system...with a station at 4th/D. "♫ There's a swingin' town I know called... Capital City. People stop and scream hello in... Capital City. It's the kind of place that makes a bum feel like a king. And it makes a king feel like some nutty, cuckoo, super-king. ♬
♫ It's against the law to frown in... Capital City. You'll caper like a stupid clown when you chance to see...Fourth Street and 'D'! Yeah! ♬"
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Post by pithecanthropus on Dec 9, 2010 21:15:15 GMT -8
I just wanted to mention that I was that unnamed L.A. Weekly reader who was quoted in the Times article. Thank you very much...thanks!...really, you're too much...come on now stop!
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Post by erict on Dec 10, 2010 7:14:37 GMT -8
I bet that once the Expo line is up and running, the LA Weekly will run a glowing article about how wonderful it is. This is exactly what they did with the Red line. History repeats they say. I have moved on.
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Post by LAofAnaheim on Dec 10, 2010 7:30:15 GMT -8
I bet that once the Expo line is up and running, the LA Weekly will run a glowing article about how wonderful it is. This is exactly what they did with the Red line. History repeats they say. I have moved on. That will happen to the majority of critics. Ironically, it also happened to many of the critics who criticized the cicLAvia event for closing streets and traffic (all negatives are usually car-related and hinders us from fun activities usually), but in the end, they nearly all loved cicLAvia and the movement has grown further for 3 - 4 in 2011! Next one: April 10, 2011!!!
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Post by metrocenter on Dec 16, 2010 11:15:07 GMT -8
The following post comes from jstephens on the California Planning & Development Report ( website). It's an excellent takedown of Lisa Korbatov, incoming president of the Beverly Hills Unified School District, and her virulent fight against the Constellation Blvd. alignment. Well worth the read. Subway Controversy Offers Beverly Hills A Lesson In PlanningAs its location suggests, Beverly Hills High School enjoys its share of amenities: a gym that converts to an indoor pool; a planetarium; a professional-quality theater. But, like most high schools, it does not have a class in urban planning or transportation. Except now that the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority has proposed extending the Purple Line subway under school grounds, Beverly High is getting a serious lesson in planning.
On its way from downtown Los Angeles to Westwood, the alignment that would pass under the high school would lead to a station in the middle of Century City, a location that Metro planners favor for its centrality. A less expensive alternative would follow Santa Monica Boulevard but arrive at a station that some contend would be less convenient for commuters. The debate over these two alignments has brought out an array of concerned citizens. Some of them express informed, nuanced opinions about cost, walkability, and local control. Others fear for high schoolers' lives.
The latest voice to pick up the children's crusade is Lisa Korbatov, the incoming president of the Beverly Hills Unified School District Board of Education. Incongruously, Korbatov said that her "first priority" as board president would be "fighting the MTA's plan to possibly tunnel under the high school."
"If the tunnel is built under the high school," Korbatov told the Beverly Hills Patch last week, "there will be interruptions in education from noise, pollution, traffic and other factors—and both the quality of our education and our property values will suffer."
As if all that weren't enough, she nearly invites nefarious forces to marshal against Beverly Hills: "I am also very worried about the high school being the subject of a terrorist attack. Terrorists have bombed subway lines in Madrid and London. Our high school, with its reputation as having affluent and Jewish students, would make a good target." (I'm sure she didn't really mean to say "good.")
If this world hasn't figured out how to get along with itself in the 20 years that it will take for the subway to reach Beverly Hills, then we have a lot more to worry about than a subway route. Moreover, they would have to be some very patient terrorists who would wait that long rather than drive on to campus tomorrow. I don't mean to scare anyone -- I just mean to point out the absurdity of stoking unnecessary fears.
Where's steely-eyed Dylan McKay when we need him?
As for those "other factors," presumably they include everything from underground vibrations to the possibility that the tunnel could collapse and swallow the school whole. If this comes to pass, it would be, as far as I know, the first such instance of a subway with such a large appetite for teenagers. But this gruesome, if incredibly unlikely, prospect must be what Korbatov means when she says, "everything I do will be for naught if there are subway tunnels under the high school." In other words, the mere presence of the subway could obliterate every new hire, every tough budget decision, every ounce of learning, every essay, every math problem, every drama production, every athletic contest, every eager freshman, and every proud graduate.
Good planning is supposed to be built on research and, whenever possible, on data and valid analysis, plenty of which is right there in Metro's draft EIR/EIS. These methods have their limits, but planners have reasonably effective, though not foolproof, tools to quantify the danger posed by a subway. And they have other tools to determine the relative efficacy and cost effectiveness of one alignment over another.
I don't actually have a position on the subway alignment, but I do have a position on the uphill battle that planners have to fight despite, or perhaps because of, these quantitative methods. For better or worse, planning has embraced metrics and objective measurements of everything from walkability to regional planning (see CP&DR Vol. 25, No. 14 July 2010). The principles that planners learn everywhere from Harvard and MIT to UCLA and Cal Poly somehow go out the window when they are pit against a public figure like Korbatov -- someone at the heart of this country's education crisis – and the public at large. So passion, not planning, still rules the day.
Korbatov did not respond to repeated interview requests, so neither I nor her constituents may ever know the basis of her concerns. But in her published statements she cites no data, no studies, and no statistics. She does not even present discursive arguments to support her doomsday claims.
For a few years, I taught high school and coached debate not far from Beverly Hills High. As an educator, I know what grade I would have given to a student who presented an incendiary, hyperbolic argument with no research or analysis to back it up. But we all deserve a re-write now and again. So I hope opponents of the high school alignment come out with more measured arguments to explain their opposition to the proposed alignment -- if not for the gratification of planners and the elevation of public discourse, then at least to set an example for the very students that they hope to save.
--Josh Stephens
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Post by trackman on Dec 16, 2010 17:20:21 GMT -8
That is a good summarizing article. Though, I am confident that the BHUSD picked the right person to lead their organization. I am also certain she will lead by example and make the best leadership she can for her organization and her customers, the students. It's my hope she will start a planning curliquom (sp?) for the school.
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Post by LAofAnaheim on Dec 16, 2010 17:41:13 GMT -8
BHHS has a very weak position on substance, no matter their leader. To say that terrorist attacks can happen because of an underground tunnel can be disproven with the significantly higher car bomb terroristic activities (NY WTC and Times Square recently, Portland, Atlanta, London, etc....). A subway doesn't bring any additional dangers a road does. Also, they are using a conflicting argument that building an underground parking garage is okay, but not a tunnel. Burden of proof will be on them to explain why an underground parking structure at a high school and oil well area is perfectly fine, but tunnels are not. And, to say that Beverly Hills should be treated any better than existing districts in LA like downtown, Westlake or Hollywood is very aletist. Subways also go under George Washington University in DC. I would love to be a fly on a wall at a potential court case. I can hear the judge now, "Wait you want to build an underground parking structure, but not a subway? What?"
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