2 Tracks on Monorail

The decision on the East-West Rail Route for the San Fernando Valley will be made soon. The final study shows that there will be major negative impacts of a monorail on the Ventura Freeway, including visual intrusions and loss of privacy, long-term day and night construction, permanent increase in traffic, loss of current landscape screening, stations 60 to 70 feet above the freeway visible from homes, and increased density along the freeway.

The Burbank-Chandler route has already been studied and approved by the county Transportation Commission. This route will solve transit problems and will have none of the problems associated with the monorail.

The biggest deception foisted on the public was the notion that the monorail was supported by the residents along the route. This was simply not true.

A group of big-money contributors provided the mothers’ milk that bought the 1990 Ventura Freeway pro-Monorail vote. The public was misinformed about costs and the huge negative impacts. Virtually all contributions to the “Citizens Committee for Monorail” were from large land developers, banks, and powerful vested interests.

One must ask, why? What’s their hidden agenda? Clearly, the goal is to create high-density developments by massive rezoning near freeway corridors.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich orchestrated the monorail campaign, and now sits in judgment, as chairman of the powerful county Transportation Commission. Valley residents must speak out at the Aug. 26 commission hearing and condemn this conflict of interest.

GERALD A. SILVER, Encino