Senate Panel Supports Bill to Block Elevated Rail Line in Valley : Transit: Rosenthal’s measure would overturn a decision by the County Transportation Commission.

The Senate Transportation Committee on Tuesday approved legislation that would block construction of an elevated rail line along the Ventura Freeway between Studio City and Woodland Hills.

If the measure passes both houses of the Legislature and is signed into law by Gov. Pete Wilson, it would, in effect, overturn a decision made last year by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission to build an elevated or monorail line above the freeway.

State Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), author of the bill, said he is pushing the Legislature to intervene in what is essentially a local planning matter to ensure public safety.

The bill requires that any freeway on which a rail system is constructed meet all federal and state safety standards, including lane width and median size.

That would set up an apparently insurmountable requirement. The Ventura Freeway, like many in urban areas, has been constructed under exceptions granted to allow narrower widths.

According to an analysis of the measure by the committee staff, the proposal “would require wider lanes and median which, given the lack of space” along the freeway would “not be possible to meet.”

Rosenthal, whose district includes parts of the southern San Fernando Valley, told the committee that if the monorail is built, there would be a “zero margin of error for those using the fast lane” of the freeway as they whizzed past the elevated line’s support columns.

The Los Angeles Transportation Commission last year seemed to end a long-running squabble over the route by rival Valley groups, voting to support the elevated freeway line. But it also gave the newly established Metropolitan Transportation Authority the ability to review the decision after further studies are completed in about a year.

When the commission voted for the monorail line, it rejected a rival, underground line parallel to Burbank and Chandler boulevards, saying the freeway line would be $440 million to $1 billion cheaper to build. Rosenthal was among the backers of the Burbank-Chandler route, along with the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., a variety of chambers of commerce and numerous homeowner groups.

Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), whose district also stretches into the West Valley, said he favors the legislation as well.

“What I think is going on is, there’s an underlying assumption that goes back years that if a monorail is not built, there will have to be built a subway as an alternative” that will wind up being much more costly than the elevated line, Hayden said.

Monorail backers, he suggested, believe that if the elevated line is not built, then more money will have to be spent on the more costly subway alternative, reducing transit funds available to projects elsewhere in Los Angeles. So, he said, decision-makers without ties to the Valley are pushing the freeway route so that more money will remain for projects in their districts.

“And it perfectly demonstrates why occasionally something has to go to the state level because of what is happening locally,” Hayden said. “This, I think, is one of those occasions.”

Timothy P. Egan, representing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, argued against Rosenthal’s bill, saying it would take the route decision out of the hands of the locally elected officials who make up the board of the authority, which was established by the Legislature.

“We feel that for the Legislature to make a specific determination on route and technology is ill-advised at this time,” Egan said, especially because his agency is working on a feasibility study of both routes.

Nonetheless, the panel voted by a 6-1 margin to approve the measure by Rosenthal and send it to the Appropriations Committee.

This is the second consecutive year that Rosenthal has sought to pass legislation that would block construction of the elevated line. Last year, his bill would have prevented construction of an above-ground rail line if more than 50% of the households within 1,000 feet of the route opposed the project. But the measure died in an Assembly committee.