Valley Subway Section to Be on Time, RTD Says

Under grilling from state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys), a top Southern California Rapid Transit District official Thursday promised the California Transportation Commission that the RTD will comply with a state law to begin the San Fernando Valley end of Los Angeles Metro Rail project by the end of September.

The assurance came from Albert Perdon, acting assistant general manager of planning and communications for the RTD who appeared at a commission meeting here at Robbins’ request.

Robbins had himself appointed to the commission by the state Senate Rules Committee because, he said, the RTD was not doing enough to comply with the 1984 law he authored that requires the RTD to initiate construction of the Valley end of Metro Rail within one year of beginning construction downtown, which took place Sept. 29.

“What my constituents have been afraid of all along is that they’ll get the shaft instead of the tunnel,” Robbins told Perdon during the commission meeting. He was referring to RTD promises to build the northern end of Metro Rail to win critical Valley political support for the project and allay fears that Valley taxpayers will shoulder a large share of the cost of the project but receive little benefit from it.

Perdon said he was unsure whether actual tunneling, scheduled to start in Universal City, could begin by Sept. 30, but said he expects the RTD will have awarded the contract by then for work on the Valley end.

“That’s something I can live with,” responded Robbins, who commented after the meeting that he believes the RTD is making a good-faith effort to comply with the law.

But Perdon also said that uncertainty over the future of Metro Rail leaves the question of when--if ever--the downtown and Valley portions of the subway will be linked.

The uncertainties include the planned route through the Fairfax District, where the RTD has been ordered by Congress, as a condition of additional federal funding, to examine alternate routes because of the danger from gas accumulations in the district, a former oil field.

No agreement has been reached among city, county, state and federal governments over funding the estimated $250-million to $270-million cost of building Metro Rail between North Hollywood and Universal City. But, Perdon told the commission, the RTD has uncommitted funds from the stretch of Metro Rail under construction downtown that could be used to comply with Robbins’ law, at least for the first year of construction.