Amtrak Center to Depart L.A. for Riverside

Despite the federal government’s pledge to help in the rebuilding of post-riot Los Angeles, Amtrak, the quasi-public railroad system, is preparing to abandon its regional reservation center in the Pico-Union district and reopen in Riverside.

Amtrak says the move, which will transfer 200 Los Angeles jobs to Riverside, is necessary to provide room for expansion and a safer environment for its workers. But critics say it deals a blow to a neighborhood struggling to recover from the riots and sends a disastrous message to the city as a whole.

“If the federal government won’t stay and fight for safer streets and buildings, who will?” asked Tom Houston, a mayoral candidate who held a news conference on the issue Thursday in front of the Olympic Boulevard building that houses the reservation center.

Amtrak spokesman Bruce Heard said the relocation of the Los Angeles office has been under discussion for more than three years and is too far along to halt.

“Commitments have been made, we had the ground-breaking this fall and construction is under way,” he said. “The decision is made.”

Heard said the new reservation center in Riverside will consolidate the operations of the Los Angeles office and a facility in Corona that opened last year to handle the overflow of work. The main reason Riverside was selected was the availability of land for a 50,000-square-foot facility, he said. A similar site could not be found in Los Angeles County.

Two hundred employees in Los Angeles have committed to transferring to the Riverside office when it opens next summer, Heard said. Another 40 employees will transfer to other Amtrak jobs in the Los Angeles area.

“No one is losing a job,” he said.

But Houston, a former deputy mayor, said that the issue goes beyond jobs.

“We simply have to restore hope,” he said. “We can’t do it if the federal government is going to cut and run.”

Amtrak employees had mixed reactions to the move. Stephanie Crenshaw, a telephone reservation agent who lives in South-Central, said she was looking forward to the move--and the chance to live in a safer area.

“I think it’s really good for us,” she said. “Everyone feels that safety is a concern.”

One employee, who identified himself only as Joe, said he considered the relocation unnecessary. And he was not as confident as Amtrak officials that everyone would find new work.

“Riverside is a high-crime area too,” he said. “A lot of people are going to lose their jobs.”