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DID YOU KNOW THAT THOUSANDS OF RESIDENTS ARE BEING THREATENED DAILY DUE TO DIESEL PARTICULATE MATTER
Neighborhood sections in the Elysian Valley and Cypress Park are as close as 400 feet to these idling locomotives!
As reported to us by the AQMD inspectors:
Over 28 locomotives are each being serviced for one and a half hours each on weekdays during business hours, as well as overflow traffic after 6:00 pm.
Often times these locomotives are idling for hours just waiting to be serviced during the week.
Often trains
idle for hours during the night. Other locomotives also idle up to 30 hours on weekends. This is a minimum of 80 hours of locomotives idling per week with multiple locomotives running at once. The noise generated by these locomotives can be as loud as 80 decibels.
Because of their close proximity, our thousands of residents' health is being threatened due to the CUMULATIVE INHALATION of this Diesel Particulate Matter (DPM) which drifts into our homes, our yards and our streets. We are forced to smell and to breathe it every single day. We say -- enough is enough of this disgusting air and noise pollution!
The residents of this area hereby expect action be taken to reduce this air and noise pollution. Our neighborhoods are important and our quality of life is crucial.
Who are we?
The residents of Elysian Valley and Cypress Park live in areas that are primarily residential and composed largely of single-family homes rich in cultural diversity. Our residents are mostly working class families who are composed of Latinos, Chinese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and many others. 53% are foreign-born and have settled in Los Angeles looking for a better life and for the freedoms and protections that America promises everyone rich or poor. The people in these areas are renters and homeowners, retired elderly, and families with children of all ages. There is also a moderate sized group of artists that also live and work in the area and is also the home to the Frogtown Artwalk.
We feel the city officials who enabled the planning and placement of the MetroLink Central Maintenance Facility in the Taylor Yards neglected our neighborhood by building this site so close to where we live, with little regard for implementing additional safeguards that could have easily shielded us from the air and noise pollution of constantly idling train engines. Public Relations Representatives from the MetroLink have stated that they are abiding by regulations. If indeed this is true, it's not good enough for us! We can assume that this is either not correct or a misstatement because of the excesses we're forced to endure every day that makes no sense to us. We're witnessing an increase of activity and unnecessary idling of these engines. Is Metrolink exempt? Do residents health have no value? We expect more from a public entity such as MetroLink. We feel enough is enough and the MetroLink Central Maintenance Facility must make changes so we can finally have a clean, quiet, healthy environment in which to live. Our neighborhoods have carried this burden long enough!
