Boyle Heights tunnel next to Soto Street Elementary
A hundred years ago, someone dug a passage under Soto Street and 7th Street in Boyle Heights so children could get across a busy road without playing in traffic. Now Los Angeles officials want that same passage filled in for good, and the school sitting beside it is the whole reason. The tunnel backs onto Soto Street Elementary, and according to city officials and the people who live nearby, it quit being safe for students a long time ago. Squatters have been reported living inside. So have drug use, fires, graffiti, garbage, human waste, and illegal items. Parents have called 911 about what goes on down there. Chain-link barriers went up to secure the entrance, and people broke through them and went back in anyway. Residents and childcare workers say the conditions are unsafe for students, and the school next door cannot run like a normal school while this sits underneath the neighborhood. Councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced a motion to close the tunnel permanently once the physical barriers proved useless. Before any sealing happens, the city still owes an engineering review, coordination between departments, funding, and outreach to the people using the tunnel. The debate over whether to keep an underground passage next to an elementary school should not exist while it is stuffed with refuse and waste and people are starting fires in it. This was never a park or a plaza. It is a hole in the ground beside a school that grown-ups keep having to explain to their kids. If the original point was keeping children safe, the answer is not complicated. Seal it.
