Mayor May Hold Key to Valley Rail

In the coming showdown between two seasoned politicians over the east-west San Fernando Valley rail project, the key to victory may lie in the hands of yet a third powerful official, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

County Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Ed Edelman have staked out their positions for years: Antonovich supports an elevated line above the Ventura Freeway, while Edelman champions a subway along Burbank and Chandler boulevards.

But on the 13-member Metropolitan Transportation Authority board, which will select a route later this month, both men control only one vote apiece--their own. It is Riordan who by law not only sits on the panel, but appoints three others, forming an influential bloc of four votes.

The city’s chief executive, who like a majority of the MTA panel is still undecided on the issue, has thus become the object of ardent wooing in the politically charged effort to bring the Valley its own rail line in the coming century.

In recent weeks, Antonovich and his aides have huddled with Riordan, extolling the merits of a monorail-type system straddling the Ventura Freeway. After the mayor’s return from a European vacation Monday, Edelman hopes to have his turn to argue the case for a mostly underground line.

“Antonovich is putting on a full-court press,” Edelman said, “and we have to do the same.”

The two sides are also courting Riordan’s appointees--Northridge real estate agent Mel Wilson, attorney Stan Sanders and Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre.

Nothing requires the three to vote in step with the man who picked them to serve on the MTA board, one of the region’s most powerful policy-making bodies. But Sanders said in an interview that he will adopt whatever position Riordan takes.

“I’m going to vote with the mayor,” Sanders said. “I’m his appointee. . . . The Valley is an important political base for him, and he should be able to take four votes with him” to the table.

Wilson said he will come to a decision this week, but added that he does not feel obligated to follow Riordan’s lead.

“I feel bound to hear him (out),” Wilson said, “but I don’t feel bound to vote a particular way.”

Alatorre voted for the Ventura Freeway alignment in 1992 as an appointee of former Mayor Tom Bradley, but “at this point he’s neutral,” spokeswoman Liz Chavez said.

Some transit officials and aides to MTA board members--even those now trying to persuade Riordan to their point of view--downplay the mayor’s influence on the board, which includes members from smaller surrounding cities as well as Los Angeles County and city officials.

“Every member of the transit authority is a key person. They are all equally vital and important,” said Antonovich, adding that he has discussed the Valley rail project with other MTA directors in addition to Riordan.

But privately, transit officials acknowledge that Riordan can sway the opinions of his MTA colleagues and that even as a single vote, his support is crucial.

Proponents of the Ventura Freeway alignment--such as the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn.--hope Riordan sticks with an endorsement of the route he made last year during his mayoral campaign. At the time, he cited the huge financial advantage transit planners believed a monorail would hold over a subway.

“If the monorail has a savings of approximately $1 billion, and if the monorail can be constructed and operated without impairing the health and safety of our citizens, I will favor the monorail,” then-candidate Riordan wrote in a transit-oriented newsletter.

But recent cost comparisons have narrowed the gap between the two proposals. According to an independent review released last month, a subway would outstrip the monorail by only $19 million--less than 1% of the total cost of either project--if open-air stations were built in some locations.

Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Rae James said that despite his earlier backing of the Ventura Freeway line, Riordan has not yet made up his mind how to vote at the MTA board meeting Oct. 26. In a hopeful sign for subway advocates, she added that his position would not be determined by cost alone, to date the monorail supporters’ most potent argument.

“Cheaper is not necessarily better,” she said. “The Valley has waited a long time for rail, and they deserve the best they can get.”

James said Riordan will reserve judgment until the city Department of Transportation publishes its own analysis of the two alternatives, including the impact of construction on nearby surface-street traffic.

The mayor will also hearken to the City Council, which is expected to take a stand on the issue this week, James said. Several council members have already voiced support for an underground system, but the spate of tunneling problems beneath Hollywood Boulevard has eroded some of its allure.

Still, those who side with Edelman and want to see an extension of the Red Line from Downtown to North Hollywood and then across the Valley are confident the City Council will agree with them.

That, coupled with the endorsement of most local homeowner and civic groups, would strengthen the subway’s case before a mayor who is highly conscious of the Valley’s role in electing him to the city’s top job.

“Since he’s been in office, he’s been responsive, he’s been concerned about the Valley,” said Marcia Mednick of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., a prominent business group that backs the Burbank-Chandler route. “I hope that would carry through with this issue.”

But, subway opponents contend, if Riordan wants to follow the will of the people, he should take a cue from an advisory vote put before residents in 1990. The monorail garnered the most votes among various options for a Valley rail system, including a subway.

As currently envisioned, the Ventura Freeway line would boast 15 stops--five more than the subway--from Universal City to Warner Center, with possible future extensions west into Ventura County or north along surface streets to Metrolink stations. Gridlocked motorists on the freeway would see the monorail zip along above them and, the theory goes, would abandon their cars for mass transit.

Monorail supporters cite the recent tunneling problems in Hollywood as evidence that subway construction is burdened with too many risks, delays and cost overruns.

“The taxpayers know they’ve been ripped off with subway tunneling disasters beginning from Day 1,” Antonovich said.

Opponents counter that construction in the Ventura Freeway median would further snarl traffic on one of the nation’s busiest thoroughfares. They contend that commuters would be discouraged from riding the elevated railway because they would have to switch over to the Red Line subway in Universal City to get to Downtown Los Angeles.

A subway extension from North Hollywood to Woodland Hills would provide a seamless ride into Downtown, with stops close to Pierce and Valley colleges and the Van Nuys government center. Supporters, such as Edelman, note that the MTA has already spent $159 million in acquiring the right of way for the subway.

Finding themselves at loggerheads is no novelty for Edelman and Antonovich, who have clashed repeatedly over the years on the Board of Supervisors. But traditional alliances among supervisors, who each hold a seat on the MTA board, appear muddled.

Although Edelman is often allied with liberal Supervisors Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, an aide to Molina said the supervisor favors the Ventura Freeway alternative, putting her in Antonovich’s camp.

Deane Dana is also leaning toward an above-ground route, according to spokesman DennisMorefield. Burke said she remains undecided.