Alternate Routes

I should like to disabuse Debra Cohen of some misconceptions she expressed in her panegyric “Plug for Light Rail” in The Times Valley Edition of Aug. 25.

We now have a living laboratory for so-called “light rail,” dubbed the Blue Line. Thus far, The Times has reported on at least three accidents that have occurred in its short existence, which would not have happened if this line were not at grade. A operator on the Blue Line commented in The Times: “On the Blue Line, it’s a little too active at the grade crossings. You fear making contact with another human being coming through there.”

Because light-rail runs at-grade, to prevent accidents at grade crossings often requires panic stops. Anyone familiar with trains will agree that one panic stop is all that is necessary for a wheel to go “out of round.” There will be a flat section on the wheel and then the train “rattles along at grade.”

The Blue Line fare-box will provide only 5% of its operating expense, and most of it runs along on what was once a passenger line. Can a Burbank branch light rail do better? In its entire history, it has yet to generate its first passenger trip. People and freight do not have the same travel needs, and the Burbank Branch carries only freight traffic, and only several small trains a week at that.

What many of the people who bought homes along the Burbank right-of-way were told by Realtors is that the Burbank line is destined to become a “green belt.” I say “Right on!”

I also support Nikolas Patsouras’ advocacy of a subway under Ventura Boulevard.

For mass transit projects to succeed and not become a taxpayers’ burden that fails to relieve traffic congestion, the mass transportation alternative offered to the driver must be a better way to go. That is what a Ventura Boulevard subway can do, and a light rail cannot.

JERRY BLAZ

Tarzana