Warner Center Group Backs Metro Rail Plan

A group of Warner Center employers has endorsed a proposal to extend the Metro Rail line partly underground from North Hollywood to the Sepulveda Basin, where passengers would transfer to buses to reach the West San Fernando Valley.

The plan was proposed in May by state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) and Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude, who contend that there is only enough money to build a line halfway across the Valley unless the line is built above ground in residential areas.

Homeowners in both the East and West Valley have organized to fight any ground-level line in their neighborhoods, and many officials fear the public opposition could kill the project.

The latest support for the Robbins-Braude plan comes from the Warner Center Assn., which represents most of the major employers in the Woodland Hills commercial development.

The association’s position is conditioned on conversion of Victory Boulevard in the West Valley to a high-capacity street, with many traffic signals replaced by overcrossings, said Norman Emerson, an association spokesman.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission is studying two cross-Valley routes for a rail line that would connect to the downtown-to-North Hollywood Metro Rail subway.

They are the Ventura Freeway shoulder from Universal City to Warner Center and a little-used railroad right of way that runs from North Hollywood to Warner Center.

A preliminary report on the two routes is expected this fall.