Preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement for West Santa Ana Branch Transit Corridor Project in Los Angeles, CA, 28932-28934 [2017-13204]

Agencies

• Federal Transit Administration
• DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 121 (Monday, June 26, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 28932-28934]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-13204]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Transit Administration


Preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement for West Santa 
Ana Branch Transit Corridor Project in Los Angeles, CA

AGENCY: Federal Transit Administration (FTA), DOT.

ACTION: Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement.

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SUMMARY: The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) and Los Angeles 
County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) has initiated the 
preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the West 
Santa Ana Branch (WSAB) Transit Corridor Project (Project) pursuant to 
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The Project is a proposed 
light rail transit (LRT) line that would extend approximately 20 miles 
and connect downtown Los Angeles to southeast Los Angeles County, 
serving the cities and communities of Arts District, Little Tokyo, Los 
Angeles, unincorporated

[[Page 28933]]

Florence-Graham community of Los Angeles County, Vernon, Huntington 
Park, Bell, Cudahy, South Gate, Downey, Paramount, Bellflower, 
Cerritos, and Artesia.

DATES: Written comments on the scope of the EIS should be sent to Ms. 
Fanny Pan, Project Manager, by August 4, 2017. Public scoping meetings 
are held on June 15, 2017 at 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., June 20, 2017 at 6 p.m. 
to 8 p.m., June 21, 2017 at 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. (Businesses) and 6 p.m. to 
8 p.m. (General Public), and June 24, 2017 at 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. at 
locations indicated under ADDRESSES below. An interagency scoping 
meeting is held on June 19, 2017 at the Metro headquarters at 2 p.m. to 
4 p.m.

ADDRESSES: Written comments on the scope of the EIS should be sent to 
Ms. Fanny Pan, Project Manager, Metro, One Gateway Plaza, Mail Stop: 
99-22-4, Los Angeles, California 90012, or via email at WSAB@metro.net. 
Comments may also be offered at the public scoping meetings. The 
addresses for the public scoping meetings are as follow:
     Thursday, June 15, 2017, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., T. Mayne 
Thompson Park, 14001 S. Bellflower Blvd., Bellflower, CA 90706;
     Tuesday, June 20, 2017, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., South Gate Girls 
Club House, 4940 Southern Ave., South Gate, CA 90280;
     Wednesday, June 21, 2017, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. (Businesses), 6 
p.m. to 8 p.m. (General Public), Nishi Hongwanji Buddhist Temple, 815 
E. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012;
     Saturday, June 24, 2017, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., Huntington 
Park Community Center, 6925 Salt Lake Ave., Huntington Park, CA 90255.
    These locations are accessible by persons with disabilities. 
Spanish translation and Spanish-speaking staff will be provided at all 
Scoping Meetings. Japanese translation will be provided at the June 21, 
2017 Scoping Meeting. ADA accommodations and other translations are 
available by calling (323) 466-3876 or California Relay Service at 711 
at least 72 hours in advance of the meeting. The Scoping Meeting on 
Tuesday, June 20, 2017 will be broadcast via Live Webcast for those 
unable to attend the meeting in person. The broadcast will be 
accessible starting at 6:30 p.m. by visiting www.tinyurl.com/MetroWSAB. 
For more project information, please visit www.metro.net/wsab. A 
scoping information packet is available on the Metro Web site at: 
www.metro.net/wsab or by calling the project manager, Ms. Fanny Pan, at 
(213) 922-6262. Copies will also be available at the scoping meetings.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Candice Hughes, Environmental 
Protection Specialist, Federal Transit Administration, 888 S. Figueroa 
Street, Suite 440, Los Angeles, CA 90017 at (213) 629-8613, or via 
email at candice.hughes@dot.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The EIS will be prepared in accordance with 
the requirements of the NEPA and its implementing regulations. The EIS 
process will evaluate alternatives recommended for further study as a 
result of the planning Alternatives Analysis approved by the Southern 
California Association of Governments in February 2013 and the Project 
Definition for Environmental Scoping including four Northern Alignment 
Options approved by the Metro Board on April 27, 2017, and available on 
the Metro Web site (www.metro.net/wsab).
    Pursuant to 23 CFR 771.123(j), at the conclusion of the Draft EIS 
circulation period, Metro will prepare a report identifying the locally 
preferred alternative (LPA). Prior to commencement of a Final EIS, the 
LPA will be adopted by the Metro Board and included in the Metropolitan 
Transportation Plan identifying sufficient federal and other funding 
for the project, in order to be evaluated under the NEPA process.
    LACMTA will also use the EIS document to comply with the California 
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which requires an Environmental 
Impact Report (EIR). The purpose of this notice is to alert interested 
parties regarding the intent to prepare the EIS, to provide information 
on the nature of the proposed project and possible alternatives, and to 
invite public participation in the EIS process, including providing 
comments on the scope of the Draft EIS, and to announce that public 
scoping meetings will be conducted.
    Scoping: Scoping is the process of determining the scope, focus, 
and content of an EIS. FTA and Metro invite all interested individuals 
and organizations, public agencies, and Native American tribes to 
comment on the scope of the Draft EIS, including the project's purpose 
and need, the alternatives to be studied, the impacts to be evaluated, 
and the evaluation methods to be used. Comments should focus on: 
Alternatives that may be less costly or have less environmental or 
community impacts while achieving similar transportation objectives, 
and the identification of any significant social, economic, or 
environmental issues relating to the alternatives.
    NEPA ``scoping'' has specific and fairly limited objectives, one of 
which is to identify the significant issues associated with 
alternatives that will be examined in detail in the document, while 
simultaneously limiting consideration and development of issues that 
are not truly significant. It is in the NEPA scoping process that 
potentially significant environmental impacts--those that give rise to 
the need to prepare an EIS--should be identified; impacts that are 
deemed not to be significant need not be developed extensively in the 
context of the impact statement, thereby keeping the statement focused 
on impacts of consequence. Transit projects may also generate 
environmental benefits; these should be highlighted as well--the impact 
statement process should draw attention to positive impacts, not just 
negative impacts.
    Probable Effects: The purpose of this EIS process is to study, in a 
public setting, the effects of the proposed project and its 
alternatives on the physical, human, and natural environment. The FTA 
and Metro will evaluate all significant environmental, social, and 
economic impacts of the construction and operation of the proposed 
project. The probable impacts will be determined as a part of the 
project scoping. Unless further screening illuminates areas of possible 
impact, resource areas will be limited to those uncovered during 
scoping. Measures to avoid, minimize, and mitigate adverse impacts will 
also be identified and evaluated.
    The Proposed Project: The Project is a proposed LRT line that would 
extend approximately 20 miles and connect downtown Los Angeles to 
southeast Los Angeles County, serving the cities and communities of 
Arts District, Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, unincorporated Florence-
Graham community of Los Angeles County, Vernon, Huntington Park, Bell, 
Cudahy, South Gate, Downey, Paramount, Bellflower, Cerritos, and 
Artesia.
    Purposes of and Need for the Proposed Project: The Project will 
provide reliable transit service to meet the future mobility needs of 
residents, employees, and visitors who travel within downtown Los 
Angeles, and portions of the Gateway Cities subregion. This new transit 
service will increase mobility and connectivity for historically 
underserved, transit-dependent and Environmental Justice communities; 
reduce travel times on local and regional transportation networks; and 
accommodate substantial future employment and population growth.
    Alternatives: In March 2010, the Southern California Association of

[[Page 28934]]

Governments (SCAG), serving as the Metropolitan Planning Organization 
(MPO) for Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and 
Ventura Counties, initiated the Pacific Electric Right-of-Way (PEROW)/
WSAB Alternatives Analysis (AA) Study evaluating transit connections 
and modes for the 34 mile corridor from Union Station in downtown Los 
Angeles to the City of Santa Ana in Orange County. In February 2013, 
SCAG approved the PEROW/WSAB AA Study and recommended the LRT alignment 
as the preferred transit mode and two northern alignment alternatives 
for further consideration: West Bank 3 along the west bank of the Los 
Angeles River, and East Bank along the east bank of the Los Angeles 
River. In September 2015, based upon the West Bank 3 alternative, four 
new northern alignment options (Pacific/Alameda, Pacific/Vignes, 
Alameda, and Alameda/Vignes) were identified as part of the Technical 
Refinement Study (TRS) that was completed and received by the Metro 
Board. Prior to initiation of the environmental scoping, a screening 
evaluation was conducted to further refine the recommendations from the 
TRS and recommended the four highest performing northern alignment 
options to be carried into Environmental Scoping. In April 2017, the 
Metro Board approved the Project definition for environmental scoping 
and received and filed the WSAB Transit Corridor Northern Alignment 
Options Screening Report.
    In addition, in the event that the WSAB line was to be extended to 
Orange County in the future, the Project will evaluate an optional 
station at Bloomfield Avenue (just north of the Los Angeles County-
Orange County boundary).
    The EIS Process and the Role of Participating Agencies and the 
Public: The EIS will be prepared in accordance with NEPA and its 
implementing regulations issued by the Council on Environmental Quality 
(40 CFR parts 1500-1508) and with the FTA/Federal Highway 
Administration regulations ``Environmental Impact and Related 
Procedures'' (23 CFR part 771). In accordance with 23 CFR 771.105(a) 
and 23 CFR 771.133, FTA will comply with all federal environmental 
laws, regulations, and executive orders applicable to the proposed 
project during the environmental review process to the maximum extent 
practicable. These requirements include, but are not limited to, the 
environmental and public hearing provisions of federal transit laws (49 
U.S.C. 5301(e), 5323(b), and 5324); the project-level air quality 
conformity regulation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 
(40 CFR part 93); the Section 404(b)(1) guidelines of EPA (40 CFR part 
230); the regulation implementing Section 106 of the National Historic 
Preservation Act (36 CFR part 800); the regulation implementing Section 
7 of the Endangered Species Act (50 CFR part 402); Section 4(f) (23 
U.S.C. 38 and 49 U.S.C. 303); and Executive Orders 12898 on 
environmental justice, 11988 on floodplain management, and 11990 on 
wetlands.
    Regulations implementing NEPA, as well as provisions of the 
recently enacted Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation 
Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), call for public 
involvement in the EIS process. Section 6002 of SAFETEA-LU requires 
that FTA and MDT do the following: (1) Extend an invitation to other 
Federal and non-Federal agencies and Indian tribes that may have an 
interest in the proposed project to become ``participating agencies,'' 
(2) provide an opportunity for involvement by participating agencies 
and the public in helping to define the purpose and need for a proposed 
project, as well as the range of alternatives for consideration in the 
impact statement, and (3) establish a plan for coordinating public and 
agency participation in and comment on the environmental review 
process. Any Federal or non-Federal agency or Indian tribe interested 
in the Project that does not receive an invitation to become a 
participating agency should notify at the earliest opportunity the 
Project Manager identified above under ADDRESSES.
    A comprehensive public involvement program has been developed and a 
public and agency involvement Coordination Plan will be created. The 
program includes a project Web site (www.metro.net/wsab); outreach to 
local and county officials and community and civic groups; a public 
scoping process to define the issues of concern among all parties 
interested in the project; establishment of a community advisory 
committee and organizing periodic meetings with that committee; a 
public hearing on release of the draft EIS; establishment of walk-in 
project offices in the corridor; and development and distribution of 
project newsletters.

 Leslie Rogers,
Regional Administrator, FTA Region 9.
[FR Doc. 2017-13204 Filed 6-23-17; 8:45 am]
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