Use Existing Rail Lines for Valley Rapid Transit

Now that I’ve read about the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s decision for a subway system in the Valley, I must express my views.

Traffic has steadily become worse along the Valley’s east-west routes. Everyone travels one to a car, and there are no great incentives for motorists to car-pool. A mass transit system serving this route is the right step to solving this congestion problem.

I’m sure you are familiar with the dormant railway lines along Oxnard Street in the West Valley that continue on to Chandler Boulevard to the east. As a matter of fact, prospective home buyers within 10 miles of the tracks are informed by their real estate agents that their homes would be near a railway (as well as a fault zone).

Every time I get a jolt from my car’s suspension or I’m driving behind a school bus that redundantly stops at the tracks to check for trains (which haven’t used the tracks in years), I remember that herein lies a solution to our traffic problem.

Why create a subway?

Subway construction creates many problems, as we discovered recently on Hollywood Boulevard. It also takes longer to build and reap the benefits.

Solution: Refurbish the existing railroad tracks. Build above-ground stations. Use electric trains like the Blue Line in Long Beach, quieter and less polluting than diesel-fuel engines.

This type of railway could be completed and operational in one or two years.

If the residents say it will be too noisy, tell them that an electric train is much quieter. Tell them that their proximity to mass transit will increase their property values, not decrease them. That there will be less stress in their lives not having to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic twice a day. And, as a last resort, that they knew they were near a railway system when they purchased their residence.

I would love to have the opportunity to use mass transit in the Valley, but the subway is not the way to go.

BRUCE ABRAMS, Reseda