L.A.-Palmdale Rail Plan Sidetracked by Confused Council

Consideration of a commuter rail line between the San Fernando Valley and Palmdale was postponed Tuesday for further clarification by a thoroughly confused Los Angeles City Council.

“This sounds like some kind of a lame-brained idea,” said Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who represents the northeast Valley. “We need some pictures, some idea of what this is all about.”

In a letter to the council, Mayor Tom Bradley and council President John Ferraro asked that the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission be urged to study such a service. They said it could relieve congestion on the Antelope Valley Freeway and help spur development of Palmdale Airport, where the city owns 18,000 undeveloped acres, which officials have long envisioned as a major city airport in the next century.

The letter also suggested that trains could run along the Antelope Valley Freeway, in the right of way, and that perhaps a private contractor would be interested in developing and running the system.

But neither Bradley nor Ferraro were on hand Tuesday to explain the proposal, and council members expressed concern about how it fits with other mass transportation proposals, including the East-West Valley light-rail line and a proposed high-speed train that could connect Palmdale with Las Vegas. Bernardi suggested that installing a rail line next to the freeway would cause lengthy traffic delays during construction.

Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, chairwoman of the council’s Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Councilman Nate Holden, chairman of the Transportation Committee, said they had not been given details of the mayor’s proposal. The council referred the proposal to both committees for review.

Proposal Criticized

Later in the day, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) described the mayor’s idea as a thinly veiled attempt to attract the bullet train to Palmdale over other destinations such as Anaheim, Ontario, Palm Springs or Victorville. The California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission, which Katz heads, is scheduled to vote on a proposed route in October.

“They know that we’re not going to run a train to Palmdale if there’s nothing going out to Palmdale,” Katz said. “I don’t find it a particularly serious proposition at this point. There’s no financing for it.”

But Bill Bicker, the mayor’s transportation coordinator, said Bradley merely wanted to expand on the train commission’s efforts. He said the mayor hopes to persuade private developers to finance, build and run the commuter service. A similar effort is being made to use private sources to build the bullet train.

The mayor’s proposal is supported by the city Department of Airports, which hopes that Palmdale Airport will become a regional airport, relieving crowding at Los Angeles International Airport, said department spokesman Lee Nichols. There are no scheduled commercial flights from Palmdale, but America West tentatively plans to begin daily service from Palmdale to Las Vegas in January.