The home opener for the Dodgers is about a month away, which will bring heavy traffic. One plan to mitigate the congestion: a gondola from Union Station to Dodger Stadium, which would hold 30-40 people in each cabin. On Thursday, the LA Metro board will take a key vote on whether to proceed. Many residents near the stadium oppose the construction, which could cost half a billion dollars.
“The argument proponents make is … wouldn't it be great if we could have some new and inventive form of transportation that would not only be cool — a gondola soaring above a freeway — but also be able to take cars off the road?” says Bill Shaikin, staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times. “Maybe some people who would drive to games wouldn't have to. They could get to Union Station, maybe on the expanded subway and bus routes that are now available, and others that will be by the time the Olympics get here. And you take cars off the road, you save some pollution. Their argument is win-win.”
The gondola will travel above houses, so one consideration is how this will affect homeowners. “Will homeowners look up and see people looking down in their living room?”
“What about stores and schools and other offices along the route?” Shaikin continues.
The idea for the gondola comes from the offices of Frank McCourt, former owner of the Dodgers. He sold the team but kept the rights to the stadium parking lot, Shaikin explains.
“The No. 1 thing a lot of skeptics of this proposal say is: Frank McCourt has always wanted to develop that parking lot, he surely still has some plans about it. If you're going to have a gondola that goes to a parking lot, where the Dodgers play 81 days a year, and you're going to be spending half a billion dollars for something that's going to go to a parking lot that's going to be empty the other … 280 days of the year, isn't that inevitably leading to development?”
McCourt is paying for the permit and approval process, but “private funding” is covering the actual construction and operation of the gondola, he says.
“One of the things that's going to come up before the Metro board tomorrow is a plan proposed by Mayor Bass and some of her allies on the board that says: If we're going to do this, whoever's operating the gondola has got to set aside — whether you want to call it escrow, insurance, whatever — that if this thing doesn't work, the taxpayers aren't bailing you out. You have private financing that would allow the city to either keep running the gondola or dismantle it.”
Shaikin points out that the vote on Thursday is only about proceeding with the project. It will still need approvals from the LA City Council, CalTrans, the Parks and Recreation Department, and LA Metro.