Group Acts to Put Trolley Back on Track

About 150 proponents of light rail rallied Monday in Van Nuys in an effort to convince skeptical Los Angeles County transportation officials that there is support for a San Fernando Valley trolley route.

The Campaign for Valley Rail Transit, a new coalition of business, civic and homeowner groups, staged the rally at the Airtel Plaza Hotel “to show that the majority of the Valley wants light rail,” said co-chairman Roger L. Stanard, a Woodland Hills attorney.

The boisterous one-hour gathering came three days before the first meeting of a 32-member committee formed by the Los Angeles City Council to determine what transit system, if any, the Valley needs.

The committee was formed after a November decision by the county Transportation Commission to halt planning for a Valley light rail system.

Commissioners, who are building a countywide light-rail network, said they took the action because of mushrooming opposition to all five east-west routes under consideration and what they view as insufficient public support for light rail.

Shortly before the commission’s decision, half-a-dozen long-established homeowner organizations had joined several anti-trolley coalitions formed earlier in neighborhoods targeted for trolley lines.

At the time, commissioners said they would not consider a Valley line again unless local elected officials designated a route and provided evidence of public support.

“We can’t let a vocal minority tell the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission to take this project and build it somewhere else,” Stanard told the cheering throng Monday.

He said that if the council’s committee “should falter or gridlock on the issue,” those campaigning in favor of light rail would be “ready to take over the fight.”

Marcia Mednick, a Transportation Commission member who attended the rally, said the turnout “should go a long way toward giving the commission what it wants, and that is bodies in support of light rail.”

Most of the 27 organizations that have joined the campaign are business groups, but organizers said they also have secured endorsements from several homeowner organizations, the Sierra Club, the Valley Interfaith Council, the Mid-Valley Multipurpose Senior Center and the Valley Labor Political Education Council.

Among the trolley routes under study is one that became the most controversial because of its proximity to residential areas. It would follow the little-used Southern Pacific freight line from North Hollywood to Warner Center via Chandler Boulevard and Oxnard Street east of the San Diego Freeway, and Victory Boulevard and Topham Street west of the freeway.

Other routes under study are: the Ventura Freeway; the Los Angeles River; the main Southern Pacific railroad line, which runs diagonally across the Valley between North Hollywood and Chatsworth; and a route following Victory Boulevard and Topham Street.