Future of L.A. River Rail Proposal Is Up in the Air : Transit: Plan for an elevated train is part of a bill before governor. Critics say it’s another dead-end idea.

Two years ago, Christopher M. Harriman, who claims to be a continentally educated cousin to the Union Pacific railroad family of the same name, had a vision of converting the long-ignored Los Angeles River into a right of way for a futuristic 300-m.p.h. railway.

He said his project would be “incredible, spectacular” and the city of Los Angeles would “never be the same” if it were built. The rail line, which Harriman said could carry freight as well as passengers, would link affordable housing along its 35-mile length to new electric vehicle factories and massive retail shopping centers and multiscreen movie theaters.

Now, the railway has emerged as the centerpiece of a bill touted by Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) as the Legislature’s most far-reaching effort to help Los Angeles recover from the economic and psychological morass left by the riots. The bill is awaiting Gov. Pete Wilson’s signature.

Torres says the railway--which would run from the Griffith Park area to Long Beach--and other projects along the channel would attract private and public financing needed to revitalize the river and city.

But critics say it is all a pipe dream--the railway will never roll.

In fact, the idea has been rejected by two agencies--the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission--as unworkable and unnecessary. Neither those agencies nor the Army Corps of Engineers, which began building the river’s flood control channel in 1938 and is working on a $400-million upgrade, had any idea that the Torres bill existed. The public works agency and the corps would have to issue permits for any projects in the river right of way.

There are other problems.

The legislation provides no budget or taxing authority for the regional planning agency the bill establishes--called the Los Angeles River Conservancy. And the lower reach of the river cuts through 11 cities that have said they oppose the conservancy, fearing that its plan for removing concrete channel walls would endanger them during a flood. To ease their fears, the bill makes the cities’ participation in the conservancy optional.

Local environmentalists cautiously support the effort because it lays out a vision of transforming the mostly concrete flood control channel into a green ribbon of parks, trails, ponds and natural basins, including restored wetlands and wildlife habitat.

“If it functions as designed, it can do a lot of things a lot of us have been dreaming about for a long time,” said Dorothy Green, founding president of Heal the Bay, the environmental group concerned about the water quality in Santa Monica Bay.

Even if the rail line portion of the plan does not fly, “just getting a plan for the whole river, dealing with the natural and recreation elements, would be a wonderful step forward,” Green said.

Still, the financing of the plan hinges on the feasibility of the rail line.

According to Torres and Harriman, the main source of money would be the banks and other investors that Harriman says are interested in investing in the elevated rail line and the accompanying development. Harriman said he and his business partner, Belgian Prince Charles-Antoine de Ligne, have met with bankers in Europe, Japan and Canada who are eager to pump $2.5 billion into the project.

“The package had to be formulated for us to go back to our backers and say it’s serious, it’s viable, it’s doable and there’s a reasonable rate of return on your investment,” Harriman said.

But there is no estimate on how much the total plan would cost or how additional funds would be raised.

Harriman said much of the preliminary analysis of the rail line, which he claims could be built using the access roads on each side of the channel, has been done and “there’s no reason” that construction could not begin within three years.

But others say there are many more questions than answers about the rail line.

Michael S. Anderson, chief of hydrology planning for the public works department, said he saw preliminary drawings of the rail line proposal in February that looked like a “Van Gogh interpretation of Disneyland.” The department has authority over much of the river’s 58 miles, which begins in the western San Fernando Valley and heads south to Long Beach.

He said he found out about the legislation last month when he read a newspaper story. At that point, he said, he called Torres’ staff and expressed “grave concerns” about some of the bill’s elements, which he said reached “ludicrous” conclusions about flood control.

Arthur Golding, chairman of the American Institute of Architects Los Angeles River Task Force, is conducting a $250,000 study on how to regenerate the river. Golding, who was not told about the legislation either, endorses aspects of the plan, but not the rail line.

He said the plan envisions “a transit line from nowhere to nowhere” that would duplicate mass transit efforts such as the Metro Blue Line.

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which built the Blue Line, reached the same conclusion when it conducted an unrelated study on using the river for a mass transit line, saying that the line would not draw enough passengers to make it worthwhile.

But Torres said the rail line is worth trying because the public-private partnership it would create offers the best hope of attracting the massive investment that Los Angeles needs to rebuild after the riots. With the state reeling from the recession and with the political impossibility of levying additional taxes for purposes such as rebuilding the city or revitalizing the river, the rail line seemed like a way out, he said.

“The vision I had was basically how you get to finance the environmental agenda, which was the basis of the bill in the first place, when there are no state monies,” Torres said.

He said it was time for action on the river, not more studies.

“This legislation is saying to the private sector, see if you can provide jobs and economic prosperity and make money, then go for it . . . and let’s get going,” Torres said. “Another study of what to do or not to do is irrelevant. It’s time for people to make some decision for how to get things moving again.”

If Wilson signs the legislation, the first thing Torres must do is find up to $3 million from private sources to pay for the conservancy’s start-up and operating costs.

If he is successful, the conservancy’s seven voting members and 29 non-voting members would begin developing a plan for a one-mile strip along the river’s course.

The plan is supposed to encompass jobs, housing and environmental restoration as well as the rail project. The backers hope that once plans are in place and private investment lined up, state and federal loans, bonds and grants could be assembled to finance part of the conservancy’s plans.

Harriman’s private group, Caltrans and the joint agency formed by a merger of the county’s transportation commission and the Rapid Transit District would study the rail line’s feasibility.

Harriman is confident that he can carry out his plan. “You have to create a vision big enough so that the larger dollars are available.”

Harriman said he wants to see the river become a combination of “Universal Studios, Westwood, Raging Waters, Sea World and the world’s longest inner-city bike trail and running trail where the Los Angeles Marathon could be held every year.”