Neighbors for Smart Rail, Plaintiff and Appellant v. Exposition Metro — Liu, J., Concurring in Part and Dissenting…

Summary

Justice Liu concurred in the court’s CEQA baseline analysis but dissented from its conclusion that the EIR’s failure to analyze traffic and air-quality impacts against existing conditions was harmless. She reasoned that comparing only 2030 conditions could obscure substantial short-term impacts when the project began operating in 2015, leaving decision makers and the public without information needed to assess short-term costs against long-term benefits. Justice Baxter, concurring in part and dissenting in part, would have upheld the agency’s discretion to use the 2030 baseline because substantial evidence supported it as realistic and informative.