Photo: Diane Edwardson, October 15, 2011. Homes in Elysian Valley are only a few hundred feet across the LA River from the Metrolink maintenance yard. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
Saturday, I was invited to tour the Metrolink maintenance yard on San Fernando Road with a small group of neighbors and representatives of elected officials from the communities of Elysian Valley, Glassell Park and Cypress Park.
It's hard to convey the scale of the rail yard. It's huge and can have trains stacked up and idling all day. According to Metro, they service 28 trains a day at the facility. There was no traffic at the facility and very little idling in the hour and a half we were on site.
While Metro representatives stated trains only idle between 7 AM and 5:30 PM, Elysian Valley neighbors pointed out there's a train that idles nightly from about 2:30 AM, sometimes for hours. Metro representatives were forced to acknowledge that one.
Neighbors also pointed out, for the past two weeks (since the meeting on October 19 was announced), trains have been much quieter at night, as if they were forced to cut back on the idling time by shutting off their engines.
Neighbors want Metrolink to reduce the noise and air pollution they've been living with since 1992 when Metro opened the maintenance yard.
The neighborhood coalition posted video footage of the late night train idling on www.metrolinkpollution.com.
