Lift Roadblocks on Valley Rail Line
Your editorial (“Indecision May Doom Valley Red Line Project,” July 3) was right on target in suggesting that the metropolitan Transportation Authority needs to make a final decision on the alignment of the San Fernando Valley rail line.
Certainly the residents of the Valley who supported the freeway monorail by a five-to-one margin over the subway in a 1990 advisory vote would agree with you that this issue has dragged on far too long. In December, 1992, all the leading supporters of the subway, including Supervisor Ed Edelman and Mayor Tom Bradley, demanded a final showdown vote at the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. The vote was held. They lost. The freeway alignment was selected.
Supervisor Edelman and Mayor Bradley were mortified. In January, 1993, they launched an all-out effort to reverse the LACTC’s “final vote.” Again, they failed.
However, they did succeed in subjecting the project to a totally unnecessary 18-month financial review, which will again conclude that the freeway monorail would be hundreds of millions of dollars cheaper than digging a tunnel across the San Fernando Valley.
The excessive delays in bringing rail service to the San Fernando Valley could have been avoided had the opponents agreed to enter the 21 Century voluntarily instead of being dragged there kicking and screaming, abetted in their recalcitrance by a tiny clique of NIMBYs and special interests. The time for decision is long past. The time for a cost-effective, environmentally aesthetic monorail system which can be built quickly without disrupting our community is now.
MICHAEL D. ANTONOVICH
Los Angeles
Antonovich represents the Fifth District on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
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