Council Urges Extending Metro Rail Into N. Hollywood

On the eve of the presumed judgment day for a Metro Rail route reaching into the San Fernando Valley, the Los Angeles City Council weighed in Wednesday with its own advice to the RTD for the second leg of the future transit system.

Going beyond the RTD staff proposal--scheduled for a vote today by the RTD board--the council urged that Metro Rail’s next phase not just reach the Valley’s edge at Universal City, but extend another 2 1/2 miles into North Hollywood at the intersection of Lankershim and Chandler boulevards.

That extra bit of mileage would cost about $280 million, pushing projected costs of Metro Rail’s second leg to more than $2 billion, according to RTD Planning Director Gary Spivack. But because RTD at present has only about $1.2 billion in funding for phase two--and because doubts still remain about the accuracy of cost estimates--most council members and RTD officials spoke of the project in tempered tones, reflecting persistent uncertainties about the ambitious, high-cost project.

The first phase, from Union Station to MacArthur Park, is under construction.

On a 12-0 vote, the council agreed that Metro Rail’s next phase should be 17.7 miles long, all subway, with 16 stations. Phase two would begin where the downtown segment of Metro Rail will end--at Wilshire Boulevard and Alvarado Street. It would run along Wilshire and fork at Vermont Avenue with one leg continuing on Wilshire to Western Avenue. The other leg would run north along Vermont, then go west on Hollywood Boulevard before turning northwest through the Cahuenga Pass to Universal City and North Hollywood.

“This won’t be resolved tomorrow,” Nicholas Patsaouras, a Southern California Rapid Transit District board member, said in an interview after the meeting. “We still have to take the plan, price it out, get an EIR (environmental impact report). . . . And we still need much funding.”

Patsaouras said the RTD will consider the recommendations of the council, which only advises the transit agency. “We listen to them, but we make our own judgments.”

At present, Patsaouras said, the RTD has federal and state funding commitments for only about 10 miles of the proposed 17.7-mile phase two extension. The agency will be seeking more money, but it is possible that the route will be scaled back if funding is inadequate, Patsaouras said.

“Looking at the finances, one has to wonder whether this will ever get to the Valley,” Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said during the council discussion.

“There’s no question that the RTD has to come up with more money,” Councilman Joel Wachs said. “They will more readily get the money if (Metro Rail) includes the Valley.”

Wachs and fellow Valley-area Councilman Ernani Bernardi were the primary advocates for assurances of a North Hollywood extension.

Hollywood-area Councilman Michael Woo, meanwhile, received backing in his efforts for two stations in the heart of the Hollywood, one at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, and another at Hollywood and Highland Avenue.

To a large degree, the council’s recommendations represented a reaffirmation of the RTD’s changes in a route first proposed in April, 1987, as a mixture of subway and elevated railways. Initially, RTD officials estimated that an “El” would save as much as $400 million compared to a subway, but new estimates suggest that the cost difference would be relatively insignificant.

Spivack said there are two reasons why a subway and an elevated line are now perceived as similar in cost: Construction bids for the first phase of Metro Rail through downtown came in below projections, and rocketing real estate values have drastically raised the cost of land needed for an elevated line. Such land acquisition is not necessary for building a subway.

The first phase of Metro Rail--a 4.4-mile, all-subway route from Union Station, through downtown and west along Wilshire to Alvarado--is costing $1.25 billion. It is expected to be in operation in 1993.