Bus Service Should Lessen Daily Dangers : For Students From Crime-Ridden Blythe Street, Trips to School Will Now Be Safer

Police have referred to the area around Blythe Street in Panorama City as the most crime-ridden stretch of the San Fernando Valley. It is also a battleground where a large street gang, which has ruled the neighborhood like an occupying militia, is fighting the LAPD for control. Residents have felt like prisoners in their own homes and describe harrowing incidents in which their back yards, and even their homes and apartments, have been used as havens and escape routes by gang members.

On average, there has been an arrest a day along a certain block of Blythe Street. Barricades were once used here to try to keep the criminals out. Instead, the gang members used the barriers to their own advantage in devising escape routes from authorities and in assaulting citizens caught on the wrong side. This is also the neighborhood that has been targeted by police and the city attorney’s office in a far-reaching gang ban that seeks to keep known gang members out of the area.

The dangers here remain. Now, however, there is a bit of welcome news. Many Blythe Street area schoolchildren had daily faced a frightening trek along these streets on their way to school, as well as a walk across Metrolink commuter train tracks where there was no established crossing. There have been 10 deaths on Metrolink tracks in the past 13 months, half of them between Sylmar and Pacoima.

Under a new plan, the Los Angeles Unified School District will provide bus service to take these students to their classes at Valerio Elementary School. Meanwhile, the city of Los Angeles has begun a shuttle bus service that takes older Blythe Street students to Fulton Middle School.

City Councilman Richard Alarcon and LAUSD school board member Julie Korenstein were instrumental in creating an arrangement that will give relief to parents from this poor, working-class neighborhood. Alarcon was especially diligent in this endeavor for many weeks.

Blythe Street parents still have many worries, but getting their children safely off to school won’t be one of them.