4 Councilmen Ignite Dispute With Appeal of Subway Route : Metro Rail: The city officials say a Ventura Boulevard line would increase congestion. But rivals accuse them of solely pushing to keep the project out of the center of their districts.

Public officials traded accusations Tuesday on the eve of a vote over whether to keep alive a proposal to build a subway across the San Fernando Valley along Ventura Boulevard.

Three Valley officials accused four Los Angeles City Council members of pushing a different route for a cross-Valley subway solely to keep any rail project out of the core of their districts.

Nikolas Patsaouras, board president of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, called the four “carpetbaggers, Westsiders who are ignoring the Valley’s interests.”

Councilmen Marvin Braude, Michael Woo, Zev Yaroslavsky and John Ferraro ignited the fray Monday with the release of a letter that reaffirmed their support for a cross-Valley extension of the Metro Rail subway along a Southern Pacific railroad right of way that parallels Chandler and Victory boulevards.

They advocated no further study of rival proposals, which they said would “create significantly more congestion, will be disruptive to construct, generate fewer passengers . . . and require longer access times for most people . . . “

The four councilmen represent districts situated largely south of the Valley.

Each member represents a portion of Ventura Boulevard, and the districts of three of the four--excluding Woo--also include a stretch of the Chandler-Victory route on the northern parameter.

The letter inflamed Patsaouras and Councilwoman Joy Picus, who are lobbying to keep alive the Ventura Boulevard subway.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission’s Planning and Mobility Committee is scheduled to vote today on whether to spend an additional $114,000 studying the plan, which has only scattered support.

Picus said the four “don’t even live in the Valley.”

She argued that Ventura Boulevard “seems to make sense because it has the heaviest traffic around. At the least, we would continue studying it.”

Also joining in the attack was Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), an advocate of a third plan to build a monorail or magnetic-levitation line elevated in the Ventura Freeway median.

Katz accused the four council members of being motivated by the “not-in-my-back-yard syndrome.”

He added that a privately financed freeway line is the “only Valley proposal that is ever going to get built because there isn’t going to be enough money for the others.”

All three routes terminate at Warner Center.

The freeway and Ventura Boulevard lines would connect with the downtown Metro Rail subway at Universal City, and the Chandler-Victory line would connect in North Hollywood.

Two months ago, a consultant estimated that a 16.2-mile monorail or magnetic-levitation line along the freeway would cost $2.3 billion, that the 14-mile subway extension along the Southern Pacific right of way would cost $2.7 billion and that a 15.7-mile subway down Ventura Boulevard would cost $3.9 billion.