Depot Owner, LACTC Resolve Metrolink Fight

Metrolink shook off its first crisis Friday as the Catellus Development Corp. and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission agreed on sharing maintenance costs at Union Station, assuring that the regional commuter train service will operate as scheduled next week.

Catellus, a San Francisco-based real estate company that acquired Union Station three years ago, had threatened Wednesday to deny Metrolink riders access to its platforms next Monday. The firm cited an unresolved quarrel over how to share maintenance costs for the historic structure.

But terms of a 70-page agreement reached Friday indicated that the maintenance costs were less an issue for Catellus than getting the LACTC to accommodate the multimillion-dollar office, retail and hotel development the company intends to build on the 52-acre station site.

Relenting on its earlier demand of $590,000 a year in maintenance costs, Catellus agreed to accept the LACTC’s offer to pay $310,000 for the coming year. At the same time, the commission agreed to work with Catellus on a comprehensive 15-year development plan for the station.

The LACTC represents the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, a five-county agency that runs Metrolink. The commuter authority operates lines from Los Angeles to Moorpark in Ventura County, and to Santa Clarita and Pomona, and more are scheduled to open in 1993. Trains run only at rush hour--into the city in the morning and out to the suburbs in the evening.

Catellus spokeswoman Mary Burczyk said the company precipitated the showdown in part because it was frustrated by an inability to get the LACTC to decide where to build additional subway and trolley platforms in the station. This interfered with the firm’s development plans, she said.

In addition to the nearly completed Metro Red Line subway, which has a station in the train depot’s basement, the LACTC is about to start construction of a Blue Line trolley line between Pasadena and Union Station. The commission plans to build another subway to East Los Angeles. The Eastside subway may include a station at the Red Line rail yard on Santa Fe Avenue near Little Tokyo.

Burczyk said Catellus had been waiting in vain to be told about specific locations and designs for these projects. She said the details are required to let the company proceed with plans to erect a twin-tower, 595,000-square-foot building designed to house the Southern California Rapid Transit District offices.

“One thing that we’ve been trying to get the transportation commission to focus on (is) the longer-term infrastructure plans for the station,” she said. “One thing that this agreement does is get them to agree to look at this in the coming year.”

Although Burczyk chastised county transportation officials Friday for having previously negotiated “completely in bad faith,” LACTC Executive Director Neil Peterson said he wanted only to look forward to future talks.

“Both of us decided the longer-term issues were much more important, so we decided to bury the hatchet on this one issue and move on to the others,” Peterson said. “We feel we should be acting more like partners instead of adversaries.”

Even before the two sides came to terms Friday morning, Catellus President Vernon Schwartz had begun assuring commuters that his company would not interfere with Metrolink service next week as long as talks continued.

That threat worried some commuters Friday, but Metrolink officials said that they doubted the controversy cut into ridership.

Metrolink spokesman Peter Hidalgo said 5,544 riders took the double-decked commuter trains into the city Friday, the last day in a week of free introductory rides. That is down from 6,266 on Thursday. Hidalgo blamed the decline on bad weather.

“The rain has deterred some of the tourists who are using the train to check out downtown attractions,” he said.

Meanwhile, the doors on a Moorpark line train failed to open Friday morning at the Glendale area station. Among the passengers unable to disembark were several Southern Pacific workers on their way to a reception thanking them for their work on the commuter railroad.