Minibus Plan Forwarded to Full Council, With Warning

A $1.1-million minibus plan for the heart of the San Fernando Valley won approval Wednesday from a Los Angeles City Council committee but only after the panel’s chairman insisted on putting a warning label on the plan when it goes to the full council.

The city Department of Transportation has proposed service by six buses, 15 hours a day through Van Nuys, Sherman Oaks and Studio City on Ventura, Burbank and Van Nuys boulevards, Hazeltine and Whitsett avenues, Riverside Drive and other streets.

Transportation committee Chairman Nate Holden, a South-Central Los Angeles councilman, demanded that the council be advised in writing that approving the Valley plan would amount to granting it preferential treatment over five minibus proposals for other parts of the city.

Holden insisted during a sometimes rancorous session that the other minibus projects be identified in the report going to the full council. Holden said he wanted other councilmen to be warned that their own pet projects might be jeopardized.

“I have no objection to all the facts being fully disclosed,” Councilman Marvin Braude, who introduced the Valley minibus plan, finally told Holden.

By its action Wednesday, the council’s transportation committee--only Holden and Councilman Mike Woo were present--recommended that the full council request bids from private contractors to operate the Valley service. Holden said the measure would go promptly to the full council.

The proposal envisions funding the plan with Proposition A transit funds, income from the county’s one-half cent share of the sales tax.

Braude told the committee that “it is high time the San Fernando Valley got its fair share of Prop. A,” a plea he has made before. Holden said that all but one of the other minibus projects “were in the hopper long before yours was.”

The proposal was one of several to emerge from a transportation summit meeting of Valley community leaders. Nikolas Patsaouras--a Valley resident, a Southern California Rapid Transit District board member and a leading figure at the summit--pressed the committee to approve the minibus route, saying that the Valley cannot wait until Metro Rail reaches North Hollywood in the year 2010 to get mass transit relief.

Another offspring of the summit was a plan introduced by Braude last month to have the council set up a reversible-direction lane along Sepulveda Boulevard using Proposition A funds to support the idea. Braude said the plan would be tantamount to adding an extra lane to the San Diego Freeway. Sepulveda parallels the freeway as it crosses the Santa Monica Mountains.

But city transit officials said the plan cannot be funded with Proposition A money and the proposal is unfeasible from a design and engineering standpoint.