Track Houses : Sacramento System Gives Valley a Look at Light Rail

Light-rail trains are “not much more than an annoyance” to Carolyn Minsch, whose rented Sacramento tract house is 60 feet from the nation’s newest trolley line.

But two blocks down the street, Janey Kinder, who also lives 60 feet from the tracks, terms life with Sacramento Regional Transit’s light-rail line “awful beyond our worst expectations.”

“We would sell but I don’t think anyone would be crazy enough to buy our house,” Kinder said.

The differing views of Minsch, who said she had expected the noise to be worse, and Kinder, who is among 27 residents who have sued the transit agency for noise damages, would be solace to partisans on opposing sides in the debate over whether--and where--to build a San Fernando Valley light-rail line.

In fact, the Sacramento line, which opened its first leg in March and its final segment Sept. 5, has increasingly figured in the debate that has raged at more than 20 public meetings on light rail in the Valley during the past year.

Cross-Valley Route in ’88

On one side, members of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, who are scheduled to pick a cross-Valley route in late 1988, have urged light-rail critics and skeptics to test their fears by touring the state capital’s line. Only through first-hand observation of the Sacramento trolley system would a true picture emerge of what light rail would be like in the Valley, commission members say.

Without such personal experience, said commission member Marcia Mednick, a Van Nuys Chamber of Commerce official, many critics will continue to believe that light rail is “a cross between a freight train and the Chicago elevated line.”

When the Los Angeles-Long Beach light-rail line is opened in 1990, commission member Jacki Bacharach said, “People here in town can ride on it and stand next to it and see how quiet it is. Until then, I hope as many as possible will visit existing systems.”

But several critics of one or more of the five proposed Valley routes say that tours of the state capital’s line only confirmed their fears.

They say that the 18.3-mile system proves that ridership projections can’t be trusted and that even trains of the latest design cause noise and ground vibrations that can harm residential neighborhoods and damage property values.

Further, critics argue that overhead lines powering light-rail trains in Sacramento and elsewhere would be a blight on neighborhoods.

A recent tour of the state capital’s system, along with interviews with Sacramento Regional Transit officials and about 20 residents living varying distances from the tracks, uncovered some evidence to support both sides in the debate.

Overhead Eyesores

The Sacramento system, serving a metropolitan area of 800,000, consists of two legs, each designed to bring state workers and others from suburban homes to workplaces in office buildings surrounding the state Capitol downtown.

Both legs travel largely through commercial and industrial areas.

But there is a part of the recently opened Folsom Boulevard leg that glides past a 10-block stretch of Trujillo Way, traveling alongside the backyards of 61 houses. It is this neighborhood that sets forth examples for Valley observers seeking insight into the drawbacks of living with light rail.

The houses, which form the northern border of a 12-year-old tract, are four- and five-bedroom dwellings similar to those in many areas of the Valley.

And their track-side position is comparable to that of houses along the proposed Victory Boulevard route and another route that follows Victory and Chandler boulevards.

Those two proposed Valley routes, both of which would connect North Hollywood with Warner Center, have generated most of the controversy in the Valley light-rail debate, especially since the commission staff endorsed the Chandler-Victory route a year ago.

A County Transportation Commission report released last week said there are 352 single-family houses within 100 feet of the tracks proposed for the Chandler-Victory route and 294 for the Victory route.

Another proposed Valley route, along the Los Angeles River, would come within 100 feet of 342 houses while 85 houses would be that close to a Ventura Freeway light rail line.

And the proposed Southern Pacific main-line route, which crosses the Valley diagonally from North Hollywood to Chatsworth and has been endorsed by several civic groups and elected officials, would pass within 100 feet of 93 houses.

If the experiences of Sacramento’s Trujillo Way residents are an indication, different residents living in identical situations can’t be expected to have the same reactions to light-rail noise.

On the other hand, all Trujillo Way residents agreed that the trains were quieter than expected and that the train’s warning horn and crossing bell are much louder than expected.

Inside their homes, with windows closed, conversation is not interrupted by the trains, residents said.

Trolleys run from 6:15 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., whereas the Valley line is expected to run 20 hours a day, from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m.

Trains pass along Trujillo Way every 7 1/2 minutes during the day, significantly less often than would the Valley trolleys, for which three-minute intervals are planned.

Adapting to Clamor

Because the line is straight along Trujillo Way, trains fly by at light rail’s top speed of 52 m.p.h. At that speed, the noise, which is a cross between a whine and a roar, lasts about five seconds a train.

Minsch, who had expected to be driven from her rented house when the train started operating a month ago, is among those who appear to have adapted to the clamor.

Interviewed outside her house, she calmly paused in mid-sentence to allow a train to pass, then resumed conversation after the noise died down.

Although she has abandoned plans to move, Minsch, who publishes a newsletter, said she “probably wouldn’t move into a house with this kind of situation.”

Two doors away, Kay Parsons has formed a different view of the train noise.

“I thought I’d get used to it, but I haven’t,” she said, “It’s my wake-up call, and I can even hear it in the shower.”

She and her husband, who are among the 27 families who have put up $500 each to join the noise-damage lawsuit against the Sacramento transit agency, have begun building on a front-yard patio and play area for their two children because now “the backyard is all but useless,” Parsons said.

Margaret Ryerson, another Trujillo Way resident, said that, after years of rail construction, the actual sound of the trains passing by “seems less offensive than what we had before, so I think we’ll tough it out.”

There is no such divergence of opinion among the dozen or so Trujillo Way residents who live close to the point where the tracks intersect another street.

At the crossing and 30 other crossings along the Sacramento line, the state Public Utilities Commission requires loud alarm bells, said Michael R. Wiley, Sacramento Regional Transit executive assistant.

Train drivers are also required to blast their horn to warn motorists and pedestrians.

Kinder, whose house is closest to the crossing, said the horn blasts and bell noise have driven her family from the backyard and, during the day, from the bedrooms at the back of the house.

“If anyone wants to nap during the day,” she said, “we do it on the living room couch, which is on the street side. There is no way you could get any rest in any room in the back of the house with those alarm bells and horns.”

Next door, Wesley Drumm led a reporter through the vacant house he bought two years ago to rent out.

“My tenants moved out right after the trains started up a month ago,” he said. “I’ve had 25 people look at it since, but when they hear the alarm bells and the horns and the trains and then see that people on the trains can look right into the house, I lose them.”

Drumm said his wife, a real-estate agent, estimates the house’s value has dropped to $90,000 since the light rail system began operating, down from $105,000 before the trains started.

Thus far, only one house next to the tracks has been listed for sale, although several people in track-side houses said they had heard reports of several more about to go on the market.

Barbara Brogdon, listing agent for the four-bedroom house on the market, said the asking price of $103,000 would be about $7,000 higher without light rail.

‘They Walked Away’

She said several potential buyers expressed interest in the house “but they walked away when they heard the trains.”

Neither the noise nor the apparent drop in property values has hit residents on the south side of Trujillo Way, suggesting that the area of distress along light-rail lines is sharply limited to one side of the street.

Separated from the tracks by another 85 to 100 feet and buffered from the noise by the houses lining the north side of the street, south side residents said in interviews that the advent of the trains has scarcely affected them.

No one from the south side has joined the lawsuit, said Denyse Watkins, who led efforts to hire a awyer and file suit.

“I hate to break ranks with my friends across the street,” said a south-side resident who asked not to be named, “but it just isn’t a bother over here. They take the brunt of it. Most of us can’t even see the trains from over here because of their trees.”

The suit by track-side residents seeks $100,000 in damages per household and asks Sacramento Superior Court to force the transit agency to build a 16-foot-high block wall as a sound barrier.

Wiley acknowledged there has been a slight increase in noise from the trains but said the agency believes it should not have to build the $900,000 sound wall.

The area already has a “high level of background noise,” he said, from Folsom Boulevard, from a nearby freeway and from a freight line, parallel to the light-rail tracks, that carries trains four times a week.

He said tests prove that the increase in noise from light rail along Trujillo Way does not violate non-binding guidelines set by the federal Urban Mass Transit Agency, which measures the nuisance value of noise over a period.

Because the guidelines give a lower nuisance value to noise that blends into an already noisy background, Trujillo Way does not exceed the standards, Wiley said.

James J. Christianson, lawyer for the residents, said that other Regional Transit officials have told him that, because of cost overruns that pushed the system’s construction price from $131 million to $176 million, they won’t build the sound wall unless forced to.

That touches a sore point with several Valley light-rail critics, who question the value of promises that County Transportation Commission officials might make before construction to build dirt berms or sound walls where needed.

“What can we do if they simply say there’s no money to build whatever they promised to build?” demanded Steve Witkin, co-chairman of the Western Sector Transit Coalition, a West Valley group opposing the proposed Chandler-Victory and Victory routes.

“There’s no law that I can find that we could use in such a situation.”

No Train Noise Laws

Ben Darche, the County Transportation Commission’s acting rail development manager, acknowledged that there are “no statutes or any local ordinances controlling train noise,” but expressed doubt that the commission would break a promise to build a wall or berm in a situation where noise exceeded federal guidelines.

Tom Herman, co-chairman of the Eastern Sector Transit Coalition, which is opposing the same two routes as Witkin and also favors the Southern Pacific main line, said his tour of the Sacramento system, which occurred before the Folsom Boulevard leg was opened, convinced him that such a system would “be terrible for any residential neighborhood, if only because those power lines would be unsightly near houses.”

Robert H. Silver, co-chairman of the North Hollywood group, also toured the Sacramento line and said he attributes low initial ridership on that line to the slowness of the trains.

In designing the system, Regional Transit elected to save money by keeping tracks largely at street level, which forces trains to travel more slowly.

Silver and other critics contend that the Chandler-Victory and Victory routes similarly would discourage many riders because trains would have to slow repeatedly for street crossings.

By contrast, the more expensive main-line route, which transportation planners say would present many engineering problems because of existing tracks and sidings, would bridge most intersecting streets.

“Wherever the Sacramento trains got onto a stretch that is not separated from street traffic,” Silver said, “you could feel the tempo slow down. I can see why they are having trouble attracting riders.”

Wiley said that, despite the Sacramento system’s physical limitations, it “has a chance to come close” to meeting its daily ridership projection of 20,500 by next September. Now, 11,000 are riding each weekday.

And the system enjoys nearly unanimous support from elected officials, he noted.

“Just about everybody thinks we have a good, solid system here,” Wiley said, “and that we were wise to build it.”

FEELING THE SOUND OF LIGHT

Five light-rail routes are being considered for the San Fernando Valley. Here are the number of single-family homes within 100 feet of each proposed route:

352 houses near Chandler Boulevard-Victory Boulevard route.

342 houses near Los Angeles River route.

294 houses near Victory Boulevard route.

93 houses near Southern Pacific main-line route.

85 houses near Ventura Freeway route.

Source: Los Angeles County Transportation Commission