These trains should run under water

from: MacAdams, Lewis. "These trains should run under water," Los Angeles Times, 2 October 2005.

Don't expect to be fishing off the 1st Street bridge in downtown Los Angeles any time soon. But don't throw away your fly rod either, because last month the city finally moved closer to revitalizing its real and symbolic core: its river.

Almost two years ago, the city engineer's office presented a conceptual study on how a seasonal waterway in the channel through downtown, created by computer-operated inflatable dams, could create "El Pueblo Lake." Now Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council's River Committee have announced that a team headed by a Pasadena engineering firm will draw up plans for making 32 miles of the Los Angeles River a more beautiful and interesting part of the city. Tetra Tech and its partners have 18 months also to come up with at least five major park projects between Tujunga Wash and Vernon's city limits.

The projects will be financed by public money, including Proposition O, the $500-million storm water cleanup measure that passed last November.

Before Angelenos and tourists spread picnic blankets across verdant riverside terraces, swim or fly-fish for trout in natural-looking pools, or gallop on a horse along tree-lined trails, engineers will have to satisfy city officials' challenges to restore wetlands, hold back floodwaters and improve water quality. But the most formidable barrier is the railroad tracks that line the entire 4 1/2 miles of the river between the Arroyo Seco and the city limits, isolating the central city from its river. . . .