Freeway Plan for Monorail Is Assailed by Residents : Hearings: Complaints resurface that the futuristic mass-transit train in the Ventura Freeway median would be hazardous and depress property values.

Some came to praise the monorail, but more came to bury it.

The first of two public hearings on a controversial proposal to build a rail line above the Ventura Freeway drew owners of homes and representatives of businesses along the 16.2-mile route, who complained that the futuristic train would be hazardous, cause more traffic and noise and decrease property values.

“We cannot imagine a monorail looming above our homes in an earthquake zone,” Judy Salish of Encino said.

But about a quarter of about 150 people who attended the four-hour hearing at Canoga Park High School were homeowners from the area of a competing rail proposal. They supported construction of the monorail because that would kill the project near their homes.

They derided the other homeowners for having chosen to live near a highway to begin with, referring to them with the phrase “not in our back freeway”--a parody of the anti-development catch-phrase “not in my back yard.”

The elevated rail line, which would be expected to carry 50,000 commuters a day, is one of two mass-transit alternatives being considered by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission to carry commuters between the west San Fernando Valley and Metro Rail stations planned for North Hollywood and Universal City.

An environmental impact report already has been approved for the alternative project--a 14-mile rail line that would follow Southern Pacific’s little-used right of way from North Hollywood to Warner Center. Called the Burbank branch line, it would be built as a subway in most residential neighborhoods and aboveground in commercial areas.

Tuesday’s hearing, and another Thursday in North Hollywood fall within a 90-day comment period, which concludes Jan. 10, on the Ventura Freeway route. Public input from the hearings--along with comments submitted in writing and on a recorded phone line--will be submitted to the full commission in March, along with an environmental impact report.

A draft environmental report, distributed at the hearing, said the freeway monorail would require the purchase of only 49 lots, taking up 49 acres and containing one single-family house, two apartment houses with 10 units, and 96 businesses.

The Burbank branch line, by contrast, would require acquisition of 192 acres containing 56 businesses but no homes or apartments.

If the environmental report on the monorail is not approved, “obviously, you can’t go much farther,” said Tim Galbraith, a public affairs officer for the commission.

But if the commission approves the environmental report on the elevated line, it will choose between the two cross-Valley routes next spring, Galbraith said, noting: “We’re getting down to a point where the commission is going to make a decision.”

The idea of a train 20 feet above the Ventura Freeway seemed dead until June, 1990, when it was backed by 48% of Valley residents in a county-sponsored advisory referendum--more than twice the number endorsing any alternative. In addition, the fate of the front-running Burbank branch line was brought into question by a cost analysis giving it a $2.7-billion price tag.

In February, the commission voted to take another look at the freeway line, the cost of which is estimated at $2.3 million.

Many of those testifying Tuesday night were homeowners who said the elevated train would bring them hardships. “I don’t get a decent night’s sleep” already, Richard Fine of Encino said. “This monorail is just going to make it worse.”

Nick Brestoff, an attorney representing the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., warned that “gridlock will occur at every intersection” near monorail stations, which would be about a mile apart. In addition, he said, the mid-freeway location would create “safety and emergency evacuation” problems, because “passengers cannot evacuate in the middle of the freeway.”

But about one-fourth of the speakers expressed support for the monorail, largely because it would prevent construction of the Burbank Route alterative.

Jerry Blatz of Tarzana praised the monorail as offering a built-in “kind of advertising” to the motorist below--”the actual ability . . . to see that train passing by while he sits in traffic.”

One Woodland Hills resident, however, asked only that the commission make some decision. “Every hearing is the same,” Archie Barkan said. “This group is opposed to that group. This has been going on for years . . . everybody has some pain here and some suffering. Sooner or later a decision will have to be made--just make it.”

Thursday’s hearing on what is formally called the Ventura Freeway Advanced Aerial Technology Alternative is scheduled for 4:30 to 9 p.m. at Walter Reed Junior High School in North Hollywood.