"Metro and Frank McCourt Push Forward with Dodger Stadium Gondola Plan Despite Legal Setback in Elysian Park"
"Metro and the Dodgers' former owner, Frank McCourt, refuse to give up on their controversial gondola project linking Dodger Stadium to Union Station."
Five months after a legal setback, Metro and the backers of the controversial plan to link Dodger Stadium to Union Station with a gondola system are once again pushing forward.
Earlier this year, the California Court of Appeals ordered Metro to prepare a new environmental study to evaluate potential construction noise impacts from the project. The transportation agency has done just that, with the release of a supplemental environmental impact report on September 19.
The more than $500-million gondola project - which has faced opposition from residents in the Chinatown community and the California Endowment - is proposed by Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit (LA ART), an entity backed by former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, who still controls the parking lots surrounding the team's stadium. However, operations of the gondola are to be turned over to Climate Resolve affiliate Zero Emissions Transit if and when the project is completed.
Plans adopted by Metro, and ordered set aside pending further review by court order, call for the construction of a roughly 1.2-mile gondola system running north from Union Station on cables suspended more than 100 feet above Alameda Street. The gondola would make an intermediate stop next to Metro's Chinatown Station and Los Angeles State Historic Park, then veer west above Bishops Road toward Dodger Stadium.
According to the environmental report, the proposed gondola system could ferry up to 5,000 passengers per hour in each direction - or 10,000 in total - with an end-to-end trip time of approximately seven minutes. Construction of the gondola