Includes Elevated Sections : Favored Metro Rail Path Most Attacked

A proposed Westside Metro Rail route that includes elevated sections on Wilshire Boulevard, Vermont Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard emerged Tuesday on top in a ranking of alignments being studied by the Southern California Rapid Transit District.

A mixed elevated-and-subway alternative was rated superior because it is the cheapest to build, passes more commercial centers and best serves transit-dependent commuters now using buses, according to an evaluation released by the RTD staff.

“The most significant advantage is it serves the designated commercial areas along Wilshire Boulevard,” said RTD planner Gary Spivak. “It performs much better in terms of the land-use and development issue.”

However, that plan also has been the most criticized, with a large coalition of Wilshire area homeowner groups organizing to fight it.

‘Primary Concerns’

“Our concern is what it would do to the entire neighborhood,” said Bill Christopher, coordinator of a group representing about 5,000 homeowners and calling itself NEOW--No El on Wilshire. “Noise and aesthetics are our primary concerns. The structure being proposed by the RTD seems to be a clone of the Miami system, which would be a very heavy concrete structure. . . . It would overpower the Wilshire streetscape.”

The debate over the extension is heating up as RTD officials continue their struggle with a hostile Reagan Administration to get funds to begin building the first leg of the system.

The rankings, presented Tuesday at Wilshire-area community meetings, were the clearest signal yet on how RTD may reroute the proposed commuter line to avoid areas of potentially hazardous underground methane gas. A previously proposed subway route under Wilshire Boulevard was abandoned last year after Congress, at the urging of Westside Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), prohibited tunneling in a large area containing pockets of methane.

While RTD staff members said the elevated option now appears significantly superior, they stressed that their recommendation could change as a result of more detailed studies or strong community protests.

Three other routes--all entirely underground and serving much less of Wilshire Boulevard--also will continue to be studied in anticipation of a final selection by the RTD board in September.

The top-ranked route--referred to as the “J” alignment--would be a two-pronged extension of the initial 4.4-mile phase of the transit line, which is proposed to run from downtown to Wilshire Boulevard and Alvarado Street. A northern branch would leave Wilshire at Vermont and emerge from the ground south of Beverly Boulevard. It would remain above ground on Vermont and also on a section of Hollywood Boulevard, before returning underground in a tunnel under the Santa Monica Mountains.

Southern Branch

A southern branch would emerge from below ground on Wilshire Boulevard west of Western Avenue and continue above ground to its terminus at Fairfax Avenue.

Cost was considered the most important factor in the staff’s evaluation, and the elevated route was about $300 million cheaper than any of the alternatives, even though it includes two additional stations. RTD officials said the elevated route also ranked highest in service to riders because it would serve areas of the greatest transit need and the largest projected growth in employment.

The Wilshire Area Chamber of Commerce, representing about 1,000 business along the boulevard, has endorsed the elevated concept. Gary Russell, a vice president of the chamber, said it would be less costly and serve the commercial core of the Wilshire area. “We feel it could be integrated,” Russell said.

At a midday community meeting in the Wilshire area, the elevated route received a mixed reaction from residents and commuters. Syd Cassyd, who lives about a block and a half from Wilshire Boulevard, said the RTD’s report was “done very much on the numbers and not on the impact on the environment. It’s a shame.”

Fear ‘Visual Blight’

Other residents said the concrete guideway, which would vary between 27 feet and 50 feet in width, would create “visual blight” and depress property values.

But Darrell Clark, a Santa Monica resident who said he works in the Wilshire area, said, “from the point of view of someone who rides it, I’d rather be up where there’s something to see.”

Christopher of the homeowners’ group told The Times that complaints by residents in Miami about noise from their elevated Metrorail system, which RTD officials have used as an example of a modern, quiet system, has caused them concern.

After the system opened, Miami officials were barraged with complaints about the trains’ screeching brakes. Sound barriers were installed, but many neighbors were not satisfied, according to a report last year in the Miami Herald.

Plan Sound Barriers

RTD officials said Tuesday that such problems should not occur with modern equipment and that they would install sound barriers as part of the original project to further reduce noise.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, whose district includes the Wilshire area, has expressed concerns about the elevated route, but also said he would like to see it serve Wilshire Boulevard.

Councilman Michael Woo, whose district includes the Hollywood area, said he “welcomes” the RTD staff recommendation and expressed confidence that the system can be designed to address concerns about noise and appearance.