LOS ANGELES : Subway Tunnels Are Safe, Transit Officials Say

Transit officials told a Los Angeles City Council committee hearing on Wednesday that trouble-plagued subway tunnels between Union Station and Pershing Square are nonetheless safe and structurally sound.

If a major earthquake had been centered Downtown during the last two years, said Metro Rail design executive Martin Rubin, “there would have been no need for this public hearing . . . because the tunnel would have stood perfectly.”

Rubin and officials of the county’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority reiterated that in their view all necessary repairs have been made to places where the concrete is less thick than the 12 inches required by the design.

Councilman Nate Holden scheduled the hearing in response to Times articles reporting that numerous segments of the tunnels are built with less concrete than designed. Holden said afterward that the hearing left him dissatisfied with the quality of subway construction and the willingness of transit officials to acknowledge problems.