Time to Rally Around the Subway Project

* I am outraged by the cries from certain public and civic representatives (an L.A. County supervisor, the head of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn.) that the L.A. subway project be abandoned. That’s truly the can-do American spirit: “We’ve run into some problems so let’s forget it.” (Not!)

I can picture naysayers like these at other great, but difficult public works projects. At the building of the Central Valley and Los Angeles aqueducts: “We’ll never get that water over the Grapevine.” Constructing I-80 through the Sierra: “I don’t think it’ll work. Remember the Donners.” The Panama Canal: “Ouch. There’s too many mosquitoes.”

There’s no two ways about it. From the construction jobs created building it, to the ease with which workers will be transported when it’s finished, to the new development that will occur at stations, the subway is a net plus for the L.A. economy. And what with lost defense jobs, base closures and the new American economy where wage increases are only a fond memory, we need all the economic net pluses we can get.

L.A. needs a public, underground, rail-based rapid transportation system to maintain and increase its status as one of the world’s greatest cities. When the system is built and the inevitable sniping and grandstanding over its construction are long forgotten, L.A. will be greater because we will have an alternative to using our cars, polluting the air and diminishing the world’s finite supply of fossil fuel.

Of course, its not hard to see where Supervisor Mike Antonovich and Don Schultz are coming from. They are spokesmen for the “Not in My Back Yard” movement, and they are seizing on the subway’s management problems to kill the project. It’s too bad they don’t put their effort and considerable political weight into fixing the subway’s management problems, rather than opting for the path of least vision.

We as Angelenos need to rally around the subway project. We must call our congressmen, demand full funding of the subway and do everything we can to counteract the shortsightedness of these officials. I only hope the damage they have done is correctable.

PHIL GLYNN

Woodland Hills