Transit Panel Nears Crossroads Over East-West Rail Plan

Those predicting that the fierce debate over San Fernando Valley rail options will go on forever might gain ammunition at a key transit meeting this week. Or they might finally be proved wrong.

On Wednesday the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission is scheduled to choose one of three east-west rail plans for the Valley that have survived more than three years of contentious study and political maneuvering.

They are a westward extension of the downtown-to-North Hollywood Metro Rail subway to the San Diego Freeway, a light-rail line in a shallow trench from North Hollywood to Warner Center and an elevated monorail or magnetic levitation system on the south shoulder of the Ventura Freeway from Universal City to Warner Center.

Both the light-rail line and the Metro Rail extension would make use of the Southern Pacific railroad freight right of way that crosses the Valley roughly parallel to Chandler and Victory boulevards.

There is only scattered opposition to the subway extension, the clear favorite of the three since it emerged nine months ago as a compromise between long-feuding homeowners and business leaders.

But that doesn’t ensure it will prevail. The 11 commissioners have come under intense pressure from county Supervisor Mike Antonovich, the lone monorail proponent, and might delay a final decision, as they have at earlier stages of the route-selection process.

Subway advocates warn that if the commission opts for a delay while the freeway monorail plan gets additional study because of last-minute changes--aimed at making monorail cheaper and sharply lowering the number of houses to be demolished--the Valley might lose its place in line for the county’s next rail project.

Because commissioners are scheduled in March to pick the next rail system to be built in the county, there may be little time to spare in finalizing the Valley route. The other rail project candidates are a downtown-to-Pasadena light-rail line and a northward extension--from El Segundo to Marina del Rey--of the under-construction Century Freeway light-rail line.

Most of the commission’s rail money is committed to three lines already under construction: Metro Rail in the downtown area and the Century Freeway and Long Beach-Los Angeles light-rail lines. Commission members say they can authorize construction on only one more line in the 1990s.

Several commissioners have acknowledged privately that the Valley’s political clout is sufficient to ensure that it will get the next line, provided it can show a united front on behalf of a single route.

The lack of money for more than one project and the time crunch has led proponents to criticize Antonovich for what they view as imperiling the Valley’s chance for a line that many feel is essential by the year 2000 to relieve worsening congestion on the Ventura Freeway and other east-west thoroughfares.

Antonovich, who represents the bulk of the Valley and who contends that only a futuristic monorail or magnetic levitation line will lure motorists from their cars, has continued to express confidence that the commission will agree to a delay.

He notes that the commission might not know for a month or two how much money it will have for the county’s fourth rail project, and thus cannot make any route decisions until then.

As a further inducement to delay, Antonovich got county supervisors three weeks ago to place an advisory referendum on the June 5 ballot in which voters will be asked to choose one of the three Valley options or vote for no rail line at all.

Supervisor Ed Edelman, who represents a portion of the southeast Valley, is among those warning that any delay “might ruin the Valley’s chances to get a rail system for years to come.”

At the end of last week, Antonovich’s transportation deputy, Rosa Kortizya, gave the first hint that the supervisor might back away from insisting on a delay so that additional monorail studies can be finished.

“Things are changing every day, and we are constantly testing our support,” Kortizya said Friday. “We intend to be realistic about this. But as of right now, we are not abandoning the monorail plan.”

She acknowledged that commissioners pushing for the Pasadena or Marina del Rey lines “have an interest in seeing the Valley not ready when the decision is made, and we don’t intend to play into their hands.”

Meanwhile, leading proponents of the subway extension across the East Valley remain confident that their broad coalition will prevail.

Roger L. Stanard, a Warner Center attorney who co-chairs the Campaign for Valley Rail Transit, said “our support is so broad that I don’t see how they can delay a decision,” which he said “could be fatal to the Valley’s chances.” He described Antonovich as “essentially a one-man campaign, albeit a powerful one-man campaign, for a technology that hasn’t sparked much interest in the year or so since it was first proposed.”

The subway extension, first proposed by state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) and Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude, was a compromise between feuding groups that appeared to be on the verge of jettisoning any chance for a Valley line.

In embracing the Metro Rail extension, business leaders agreed to put off for now their goal of a rail line that would reach all the way to Warner Center. Instead, they hope that express buses will close the gap between the end of the Metro Rail line at the San Diego Freeway and Warner Center.

And leaders of homeowner groups, who had fiercely opposed any line that intruded into single-family areas, agreed to allow stations in residential areas along the Chandler-Victory right of way and to put up with at least four years of noisy and dusty tunneling.

The third alternative--a light rail in a shallow trench along the Chandler-Victory route--has been a commission staff favorite through the three-year study of Valley rail options.

Such a light-rail system could be built from North Hollywood to Warner Center, a distance of 14.1 miles, for $1.1 billion, according to the recently completed environmental impact report on Valley rail alternatives.

By contrast, the Robbins-Braude subway extension would cost $1.1 billion for 5.6 miles of rail.

Antonovich’s 16.5-mile monorail plan carries a $1.8-billion price tag.

Although many homeowner leaders have endorsed the subway extension, some remain opposed, predicting that the commission will seize the opportunity to designate the Chandler-Victory route, then announce several years from now that more detailed engineering studies show that there is only enough money to build a ground-level line.

Also, a faction headed by Gerald A. Silver has emerged in recent months to oppose all rail systems as too costly.

“These systems are a boondoggle,” said Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino. “They cost way more than advocates say, and they never come close to meeting ridership projections.”

Silver and others instead urge expansion of the regional bus system.