Tax Increase May Help Metro Rail Reach Van Nuys by 2000, Planners Say

The voters have provided enough money to complete the Metro Rail subway from downtown to Van Nuys by 2000--one year earlier than previously planned--and all the way to Warner Center by 2009, county rail planners said Wednesday.

Also, separate light-rail lines could be built from downtown to Pasadena by 1995 and from downtown to Glendale by 1996, they said.

Planners raised those possibilities in a report to the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission on tentative plans for allocating the proceeds of the extra half-cent sales tax that voters approved last month.

The commissioners, who took no action on the staff recommendations Wednesday, cautioned that the staff-drafted plans might be changed substantially.

“I hope people don’t take this as set in stone,” said William Bicker, Mayor Tom Bradley’s representative on the commission. “We still have to work out thousands of details.”

In March, when the commission staff last unveiled a construction schedule, no provision was made for extending the subway west of the San Diego Freeway to Warner Center or for building a light-rail line to Glendale. Transit officials said there was no money available for those projects.

But because county voters on Nov. 6 passed a second half-cent sales tax to finance transportation spending--in 1980, voters approved the first half-cent tax increase--planners now have $800 million a year to spend on building and operating rail and bus lines, plus federal and state money allocated for specific projects.

Under two scenarios the staff suggested to the commission Wednesday, Metro Rail’s second, third and fourth phases would be completed simultaneously in 2000.

The three segments, each of which is to be built with a different mix of federal, state and local funds, include: from MacArthur Park on Wilshire Boulevard to the northern edge of Hollywood, from there to Lankershim and Chandler boulevards in North Hollywood, and from there to the San Diego Freeway just south of Victory Boulevard.

Under one scenario, the line’s final nine miles from Van Nuys to Warner Center would be completed in 2009, while the second plan called for completion in 2020.

Although the commission in March voted to extend the downtown subway west from North Hollywood to Van Nuys, a group of monorail supporters continues to push for an elevated monorail along the Ventura Freeway from Universal City to Warner Center in lieu of the Metro Rail extension.

They are predicting that a commission-paid study of the monorail plan will find that the 16.5-mile line can be built for about the same $1.1 billion that it would cost to build the 5.6-mile subway extension from North Hollywood to Van Nuys.

Under both plans unveiled Wednesday, the downtown-to-Pasadena light-rail line would benefit most from the new infusion of cash.

In March, the line was formally adopted by the commission and scheduled for construction from 1995 to 1998. But both scenarios suggested that construction begin next year, with completion by 1995.