Transit on Track : Commuter railways may be just around the corner. Transportation officials anticipate hooking up with the five-county Metrolink.

There has been a lot of news this fall about plans for smog-beating commuter trains to run in Ventura County. When I called Bill Davis, mayor pro tem of Simi Valley, to ask what he thought about the planned commuter rail link from Simi to Los Angeles, I was told he would be in a meeting all day about railway safety.

Uh-oh, I thought. He’ll be in there worrying about noise, spills and real estate values sinking. Maybe I’d better wait until the commuter service is up and running and has proved itself like the new trolley from Long Beach to downtown L.A. (no noise, no spills--not even an inch of graffiti despite 30,000 riders a day).

Then he called back.

“I understand you’re calling about commuter rail,” he began in a businesslike manner. Then, warming to his topic, he said: “We had it experimentally for a few months in 1980. It is a godsend. My wife rode every day.”

And, referring to recently revived commuter rail programs: “It’s planned far better than anything previous. Who would have thought you could get five counties to agree on a train?”

Our Ventura County Transportation Commission, of which Davis is a member, is proceeding on its own resources to connect up with the five-county Metrolink system. By this time next year, you’ll be able to commute with a new double-decker train--four departures each morning and four returns each evening--from Moorpark or Simi Valley.

The engines, according to Simi Valley City Manager Mike Sedell, are so quiet, “if there’s any wind you can’t hear them.” Service from Camarillo, Oxnard and Ventura will be added as demand increases.

Just look at the turn of events in Orange County last week. Public perception of the value of rail commuting has come so far the transportation commission there voted unanimously to spend more than $2 billion to link up with the L.A. Metro system.

Santa Paula Mayor John Melton is the chairman of our transportation commission. He views rail commuting as “a way to maintain our greenbelt.”

A feasibility study, he said, was begun last week to explore a commuter route along California 126 from Ventura to the Metrolink station in Santa Clarita.

“We’re looking at ideas, everything from a regular service to a dinner train like they have in Napa Valley.”

Ginger Ghirardi, executive secretary of our County Transportation Commission, said: “I used to live in Santa Clarita, and it was 115 in the summer. If I could have hopped on a train for the beach with my son, it would have been wonderful.”

Our local tourist industry would do well to have a year-round link from Main Street in Ventura through picturesque Santa Paula and Fillmore to the roller coasters at Magic Mountain.

What about a train alongside the Ventura Freeway? Well, that’s the subject of a video shown by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) at a recent shindig for transit experts from this county and others.

One scene from the video, “Crystal Ball of Transportation--a 4-D Imager Video,” showed a computer-generated picture of a Japanese-manufactured “magnetic-levitation” train running alongside the Ventura Freeway. The train is silent and its track sits on poles about as obtrusive as street lights in the daytime. I was hoping to hear that L.A. County was going to build one right up to the Ventura County line.

By coincidence, last week there came to light a possible way to connect this mag-lev line to our Metrolink stations. “Closing the circle,” as Ghirardi termed it.

One Japanese firm, HSST Corp., is so eager to get its mag-lev business going in the United States that it’s offered to build for free the link north from the Ventura Freeway at Warner Center to Chatsworth, which would be the last stop before Simi Valley.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission must decide in January between mag-lev technology and a conventional subway to join Universal City to Warner Center across the San Fernando Valley. One way or another, we are going to be connected to a south San Fernando Valley commuter line.

The very idea of escaping even a portion of the Ventura Freeway commute makes me dizzy with anticipation. But that’s what happens whenever I stop breathing car exhaust and get into the clean air of Mayor Melton’s Santa Paula greenbelt.

* FYI

Community groups and schools interested in a look at the “Crystal Ball of Transportation--a 4-D Imager Video” should call the Ventura County Transportation Commission. The commission also provides expert speakers on the impact of forthcoming rail facilities in each of our communities. For more information, call 654-2888 (toll free from anywhere in the county).