City Council Divided on Light Rail

The Los Angeles City Council, which this week will receive a report recommending two San Fernando Valley rail routes, is far from a consensus on which is the better proposal and also is split on how to go about choosing a final route, a poll of council members shows.

The council-created advisory route selection committee last week endorsed both a proposed Ventura Freeway line from Universal City to Warner Center and a line that would use a Southern Pacific railroad freight right of way from North Hollywood to Warner Center.

Both plans face well-organized opposition from homeowners living near the proposed rail lines.

Interviews with council members, conducted after the committee completed its work last week, indicate that:

Four members--John Ferraro, Nate Holden, Michael Woo and Gloria Molina--feel that the council must promptly select one of the two routes to prevent losing funds to rail projects outside the Valley.

Three council members--Joel Wachs, Marvin Braude and Joy Picus--feel that the council should forward the two-route recommendation to county transit officials, putting off a decision until environmental studies are completed.

Only two members were willing to endorse any route. Ferraro, who represents part of North Hollywood and Van Nuys, said he could support either route, while Hal Bernson, who represents the northwest Valley, said he supports a freeway rail line on an upper deck that also would carry a toll road.

Only two members were willing to oppose either route. Woo and Zev Yaroslavsky said they oppose the North Hollywood-to-Warner Center route, which parallels Chandler Boulevard, Oxnard Street, Victory Boulevard and Topham Street, because it would disturb residents. Both said they might support it if it were tunneled under residential areas.

Three members--Ernani Bernardi, Ruth Galanter and Joan Milke Flores--said they had no comment at this time on the committee report.

In creating in March the 32-member Citizen’s Panel on Transportation Solutions, the council hoped to end years of wrangling over proposed Valley rail routes.

But the committee split into three factions and could not muster a majority for any one route.

As a result, the two-route endorsement was approved by 21 panel members who were advocates of using either the freeway or the freight right of way, or who could not decide between the two. Most of the 10 members who voted against it supported a route along San Fernando Road from downtown Los Angeles to Sylmar.

Ultimatum Response

The council, in forming the committee, was responding to an ultimatum from the County Transportation Commission, which is building a countywide light-rail system.

Faced with growing opposition, the commission abandoned its effort to select a Valley route last November and gave the council until September to designate a route with widespread Valley support.

Now the advisory committee has “kind of passed the buck,” complained Holden, chairman of the council’s Transportation and Traffic Committee, which will receive the panel’s report and make a recommendation to the full council.

Holden had no prediction on which route the council might select, and he said he was undecided on which one to favor.

Woo, who is the council’s representative on the 11-member County Transportation Commission, said he thought it possible a consensus might yet develop among council members, particularly the eight whose districts are partly or fully in the Valley.

Those eight are Woo, Yaroslavsky, Ferraro, Wachs, Braude, Bernardi, Picus and Bernson.

Woo emphasized that the council must select one route because “we cannot go to the commission and say, ‘Pick one of these two or three.’ ”

But Heather Dalmont, an aide to Wachs, said Wachs could see no problem with sending both routes to the commission.

Studied 5 Routes

Noting that until November the commission was studying five Valley routes, she said, “I can’t imagine why they would refuse to study two.”

Bernson, whose district is miles from either route, was not optimistic about the council’s ability to reach an agreement, saying it could be a “provincial thing where everybody fights to keep it out of their district.”

Bernson was head of a study committee formed by the Southern California Assn. of Governments that earlier this year endorsed a controversial plan to construct an upper deck on the Ventura Freeway carrying both motor vehicles and a light-rail line. He predicted it would prove to be the least costly plan.

Consultants have estimated that an elevated freeway line would cost $1.2 billion but that the cost might be split equally with the state Department of Transportation, which is studying adding a second deck to the freeway.

The consultants said that the ground-level Chandler-Victory line would cost $740 million, while the same route with two subway sections would run nearly $1.3 billion.

A key to the council’s action might be the position taken by the seven members whose districts do not extend into the Valley.

While several said they would look to Valley members for guidance, Richard Alatorre predicted that there would be no consensus and viewed it as an opportunity to gain a rail line for his Eastside district.

Until the council can agree on a Valley line, he said, transit funds should go to “communities that are in dire need of light rail, like moving east.”

On the other hand, Gilbert V. Lindsay, who represents downtown, said he “could care less” about a Valley rail line and would be guided by Ferraro, the council president and a political ally.

“Whatever the president says he wants out there, I’ll give it to him,” Lindsay said.