Letters to the Editor: Frank McCourt’s Dodger Stadium gondola would be an environmental injustice

To the editor: Metro’s opaque deal with former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt to build a gondola to Dodger Stadium through LA State Historic Park would severely compromise people’s experience of the park, a taxpayer-funded 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. LA 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.

After this long-fought struggle, people deserve to have their original designs and uses for the park respected and their public land protected.

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.

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To the editor: In 2018, we visited La Paz, Bolivia, which has a gondola transit system. We used it to get around the city. 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 fully 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

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To the editor: The group Climate Resolve claims that this McCourt proposal will reduce traffic and pollution. A study conducted by my colleagues at the UCLA Mobility Lab found that the gondola will not reduce traffic significantly on the streets and highways around Dodger Stadium on game days and, therefore, will not reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Furthermore, McCourt has not donated the project to Climate Resolve, according to county counsel. So why is Climate Resolve shilling for the project, while McCourt remains silent about his end game, a massive entertainment complex on the Dodger Stadium parking lots, which he has long touted?

This is greenwashing, pure and simple. We have better solutions. The existing Dodger Stadium Express from L.A. Union Station is 19 times more energy efficient than the gondola would be per passenger trip. An individual electric vehicle is eight times more efficient.

Jon Christensen, Los Angeles

The writer is an adjunct assistant professor at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability.