2 Get Panel’s Unanimous Endorsement : Choice Will Be Among 5 Trolley Routes

A committee of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission has decided to submit five alternate routes for a proposed Valley trolley for consideration by the commission, although committee members were unanimous in recommending only two of them.

The committee, after a boisterous hearing in Van Nuys on Monday night, voted in favor of keeping alive two possible routes for the trolley, which would connect the eastern and western San Fernando Valley. One is along Victory Boulevard, the other follows the Southern Pacific Railroad mainline.

But the four-member rapid transit committee divided, 2 to 2, on keeping three other routes in contention: the Los Angeles River flood-control channel; a Southern Pacific freight spur that runs south of the mainline and alongside Victory Boulevard in the West Valley, and the Ventura Freeway, a route that would require an elevated train.

Yearlong Environmental Study

Erica Goebel, a spokeswoman for the commission, said Tuesday that the committee had decided to submit all five possibilities to the 11-member commission. The commission will chose the routes to subject to a yearlong environmental study.

“They were split on the recommendations,” Goebel said, and “they had the privilege” of submitting disputed routes.

The committee ruled out only two routes, one following Sherman Way to Canoga Avenue, and another that would have required elevating trains along Ventura Boulevard.

The commission will consider the routes at a Feb. 11 meeting in the Department of Water and Power building downtown.

About 700 people attended the hearing at Birmingham High School on Monday night. Most were opposed to having the trolley routed through their neighborhoods.