Amidst controversy, developers preview stadium plan for LA City Council

The company that wants to build a pro football stadium in downtown Los Angeles offered city councilmembers a preview of how it’s studying traffic issues around the multimillion dollar project on Monday.

Development company AEG has tried to cover all all angles, including transportation, on what it hopes will be an expedited road to completion.

The company has enrolled Irvine-based consulting firm The Mobility Group to help. survey how fans could travel to a proposed stadium. Mike Bates, president of firm, estimates that around 15 percent or more of ticket holders would use bus or rail lines to get to games.

"One of the main comments we get in the community meetings is [that] people are excited about the proximity to transit and the ability to use transit to get to the event center," he said.

Even with public transit, the company needed to find 20,000 parking spots for each weekend game, a task Bates says is already completed.

AEG representatives say making the surrounding streets friendly to foot traffic will encourage at least 3 percent of fans to walk to games. L.A. City Councilman Ed Reyes told Bates he was disappointed with the findings that he said ignored the needs of his district.

"It's as if 70,000 people don't exist on the other side of the freeway, 70,000 people per square mile," he said.

Reyes' remarks refer to the Pico Union neighborhood west of the 110 Freeway. He says AEG should study collateral effects in his district; a district where apartment dwellers report prostitution and overflow parking during major events at L.A. Live and Staples Center.

"During the Emmy awards we had limousines parking on the street in front of people’s homes blocking their driveways as if no one lived there," said Reyes.

Bates and AEG attorney Bill Delvac promised to deliver a comprehensive draft environmental impact report, which it aims to finish in January.