LA Tunnel

LA transit planners are considering building an 11 mile tunnel between Orange and Riverside counties (presentation here) The Times article I link to above focuses on people's concerns about earthquake safety--which does seem like a plausible concern:

Litschi said engineers were waiting to see if the committee chooses the tunnel option before doing more studies on the Lake Elsinore fault system, but acknowledged that seismic activity is a ''major concern.''

Local officials have worked closely with a British engineering company that has helped build some of the largest tunnels in the world and has concluded that the tunnel is ''viable and feasible,'' said H. Tony Rahimian, a consultant who helped devise the tunnel proposal.

''A tunnel is actually a very safe place. We don't want to run it through the faults and we're going to avoid that,'' he said.

Orange County traffic is really appalling, so clearly something needs to be done. Unfortunately, neither the Times article nor the project web site provides any clear indication of the level of concern one should have over seismic stability.