Trolley Enterprise Makes Sense

Using private money to build a trolley line down the middle of the Ventura Freeway makes sense. So it’s hard to figure out why political leaders who control the region’s public transportation system are so opposed to the idea, proposed earlier this month by a consortium led by a New York-based engineering firm building a similar system in Puerto Rico.

Granted, the proposal by Fredric R. Harris Inc. is still so preliminary that it’s difficult to know how serious the company is about building the 19-mile light rail line along the freeway median between Woodland Hills and Burbank’s Media District. Company executives say they are at least serious enough to spend $2 million on a feasibility study and enter into talks with both Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

But many on the MTA’s governing board immediately discounted the idea as a political ploy by Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who has long supported building a monorail along the freeway. Critics of the proposal support building an extension of the Metro Red Line between Universal City and Warner Center along Burbank and Chandler boulevards--a project that under even the best financial and political circumstances is not expected to be completed until well into the next century.

Backers of the private proposal claim they could have the Ventura Freeway line running by 2003 at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion--about $2 billion less than MTA’s current plans. Even better, that money would come from private sources such as venture capital or corporate bonds. Construction of the line would require widening of the freeway, but none of the more exotic and expensive tunneling work that has plagued construction of the Red Line.

It’s too early to embrace the private proposal because too many questions remain unanswered. But it’s also too early to discount it for the same reason. If private money can finance a public project in less time, it deserves a closer look.