Repeal of Subway Law to Be Studied

Reopening a debate over a proposed San Fernando Valley rail line, transportation officials next week will consider seeking the repeal of a law requiring any such line to run underground in residential areas.

The legislation was designed to ensure that a rail line does not create noise and traffic problems for residents along the proposed route in Van Nuys and North Hollywood.

Representatives of homeowners groups and state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Van Nuys), who represents the residential area that the proposed line would go through, quickly pledged to work against lifting the ban on above-ground rail lines.

“The only people open to repealing it won’t be impacted by the line,” said Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn.

Rosenthal, who represents the same district as the author of the law, former Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana), is opposed to repealing it.

“He would not support bringing a rail system through residential areas at grade,” said Lynnette Stevens, Rosenthal’s chief of staff.

She said the senator would like to see the MTA consider other cost-saving alternatives such as adding more clean-air buses.

At the request of John Fasana, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority member from Duarte, the MTA will consider asking state lawmakers to repeal the law in order to provide the option of an at-grade line in the Valley.

The proposal comes as MTA officials struggle with financial shortfalls, cost overruns and tunneling mishaps during construction of the Metro Rail Red Line in Hollywood. A ground-level line would be substantially less expensive than the proposed $2.2-billion Valley subway.

Fasana said the growing sentiment among MTA and federal officials is that a subway in the Valley is too expensive considering the MTA’s funding problems.

“We have to find a way to spend our diminishing dollars wisely,” he said.

Mayor Richard Riordan, who told The Times last year of his concerns about the cost of subway tunneling in the Valley, reiterated his position but stopped short of saying he wants the law repealed.

Instead, Riordan representatives said the mayor--an MTA member with the power to appoint three other members--wants the board to consider cheaper alternatives to a Valley subway.

“The mayor has not specifically advocated any solution,” said Jaime de La Vega, Riordan’s assistant on transportation issues.

Plans for a Valley line have been in the works for nearly 20 years. In 1990, MTA officials began studying a subway alternative, a monorail along the median of the Hollywood Freeway, from Universal City to Woodland Hills.

The debate over the two proposals split the Valley into feuding factions until the MTA reaffirmed its support for the so-called Burbank-Chandler route last year.

Under the MTA’s 20-year plan, construction of the Valley line would begin in 2003, with the completion expected in 2010.