Key Coalition Backs Subway Extension at Rail Hearing

A formidable coalition of San Fernando Valley business and homeowner group leaders expressed support Wednesday for extending the Metro Rail subway from North Hollywood to the Sepulveda Basin instead of a controversial plan to build a cheaper but longer light-rail system to Warner Center.

Leaders of the coalition, formed from groups that fought one another vigorously for three years before compromising six months ago, spoke at the first of two public hearings Wednesday on Valley rail options.

The hearing was conducted by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which is building a countywide network of rail lines and plans to select its next rail project as early as March.

The subject of the hearing was a recently completed environmental impact report on 10 San Fernando Valley rail options--each with a different combination of technology and track placement either above or below ground--along two cross-Valley routes.

The routes under study are the southern shoulder of the Ventura Freeway from Universal City to Warner Center, and a Southern Pacific rail right of way that crosses the Valley from North Hollywood to Warner Center parallel to Chandler and Victory boulevards.

Both routes were studied as extensions of the downtown-to-North Hollywood Metro Rail subway and as light-rail lines at ground level, in a shallow trench or in a deep trench.

In addition, the report studied the possibility of ending the rail line on both routes in the Sepulveda Basin, where travelers bound for the West Valley would transfer to buses.

Rail planners and others had expected some desertions from the coalition after the environmental report found that the subway from North Hollywood to Encino would cost $1.3 billion, about twice what the commission will have available to spend during the coming decade on its next rail project.

By contrast, a bare-bones light-rail system from North Hollywood to Warner Center could be built for $1 billion, according to consultants who prepared the environmental report.

The higher cost for the subway “means we may have to wait until after the turn of the century before the system is in operation,” said Kurt Hunter, president of the North Hollywood Homeowners Assn. and a subway supporter.

However, he said, that “doesn’t mean we shouldn’t build it. This is a system that will last 100 years.”

The Metro Rail extension to the Sepulveda Basin is the “most cost-effective alternative” of the 10 studied, said Gerald Curry, a Warner Center attorney representing the Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce. “It’s also the least disruptive to neighborhoods.”

Despite the heavy support for a subway, a majority of the 100 people attending Wednesday’s hearing kept up the pressure on the commission, opposing any aboveground rail line in residential areas.

They cheered vigorously as speaker after speaker warned that an aboveground light-rail line would bring noise, ground vibrations and traffic congestion to single-family neighborhoods along both routes.

Also represented at the hearing were homeowner group leaders from Van Nuys, Reseda and Encino who oppose any rail system, arguing that such lines cost too much, never meet ridership projections and are so expensive to operate that bus maintenance will suffer.

Former U.S. Rep. Bobbi Fiedler contended that rail construction funds should be used instead to improve bus service.

If any rail system is built in the Valley, she said, it should not be a costly east-west route but should be constructed along San Fernando Road in the low-income northeast Valley, “where we already know there are people who need and will support public transit.”

The commission will again take testimony on the report at 10:30 a.m. and at 1 p.m. Sunday at North Hollywood High School, 5231 Colfax Ave.