Fast-Growing Sunland, Sylmar to Get Bus Service at Last

Los Angeles transit officials on Thursday inaugurated bus service on Foothill Boulevard, a major artery linking Sunland and Sylmar in the northeast San Fernando Valley that has had no service despite years of rapid residential and industrial growth.

“Finally, it means that we in Sylmar won’t have to go south and west on buses in order to end up east,” said Hannah Dyke, a longtime community activist.

“This has been the fastest-growing area of the city for years and until today it didn’t have a bus on that corridor,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who represents the area.

To serve the corridor, the Southern California Rapid Transit District extended Line 90-91, which previously operated only between Sunland and downtown, nine miles northwest along Foothill Boulevard to Olive View Medical Center in Sylmar.

The extension, which will operate hourly, will be tried for six months at an estimated cost of $35,000 to determine if ridership is adequate, said RTD board President Nikolas Patsaouras.

The extension is expected to draw riders from Olive View Medical Center, Hansen Dam Park and the fast-growing Lake View Terrace industrial area.

Before the extension, Sylmar was served by two bus lines connecting it to communities to the south and southwest.

But to get to Lake View Terrace, Sunland and other destinations to the southeast, residents had to go as far out of their way as Sepulveda and Panorama City, then transfer to buses headed northeast.

“It would take hours when it should have taken minutes,” said Dyke, a 15-year Sylmar resident.

She predicted the extension would prove especially popular with senior citizens, “who have wanted a tie between Sunland and Sylmar for a long time.”

Dyke, expressing surprise that the extension was finally in operation, said that community activists “pushed for this connection for years, but then we gave up.”

Patsaouras, an appointee of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, attributed the breakthrough to two daylong Valley transportation summits.

At each of the brainstorming sessions, elected officials plus more than 30 representatives of business and homeowner groups exchanged ideas of how to ease congestion in the Valley.

The Sunland-to-Sylmar extension “was recognized by all as a great need,” said Patsaouras, a Tarzana resident.

“So we at the RTD gave it a good look and decided to do it.”

Cynthia Oliver, an administrative liaison at Olive View Medical Center, said the county-owned hospital was “pleasantly surprised” by the new bus service.

“We didn’t push for it, but we certainly welcome it,” Oliver said.