A Tale of Two Valleys

Months before he would learn that The System would foist a new area code upon him, a San Gabriel Valley man named Al posted this electronic lament on an America Online community bulletin board:

Ever get tired of people talking of “The Valley” (San Fernando) as if the Los Angeles area had only ONE. I know I do.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but once in awhile I’d like to hear about the traffic conditions on the 10, 210 and 60 Freeways BEFORE I hear about the 405 and the 134. You figure that the people in the San Fernando area can’t drive. . . .

Al’s peeve, misguided though it may be, is the symptom of something real. Everyone from William Mulholland to the multitudinous Valley Girls established the San Fernando Valley’s prominence long ago. The San Gabriel, as this road sign in cyberspace put it, is “The ‘Other’ Valley.”

So when it came time for The System to divide the 818 area code, was there any serious doubt about which valley would win?

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The Valley, of course, was victorious, retaining 818 for itself. And when the state Public Utilities Commission recently redrew the boundaries recommended by the telecommunications industry, allowing Burbank, Glendale, La Crescenta and La Canada Flintridge to remain in the 818 area code, those communities rejoiced. Their neighbors to the west were also happy to keep them in the 818 fold.

The San Gabriel Valley, meanwhile, will start suffering the new 626 area code in June. Not only does this make for personal inconvenience, but businesses there will have to alter advertising, stationery and even some computer software--costs that could run into the millions.

But for guys like Al, the worst damage might by psychological. Few things in life are quite as dehumanizing as to be assigned a new number. And what if you happen to think your old number was lucky?

For many people, that’s no laughing matter. In trying to keep 818 for itself, the city of Monterey Park, home to many Chinese and Chinese Americans, suggested that The System should be sensitive to the fact that, according to Chinese tradition, the number 8 suggests good fortune, and two so close together is doubly fortunate.

The System, of course, is more interested in profits than prophecy. And because money and power go hand in hand, many people assume that The Valley’s victory came down to a matter of political clout. After all, to whom is The System going to pay more attention: the city of Monterey Park or the city of Los Angeles? The Valley’s prominence, as one of Al’s neighbors put it, is “just one of those Hollywood/L.A. type of deals.”

But a reluctant spokeswoman for The System says the real reasons may not be so obvious.

Linda Bonniksen, a Pacific Bell spokeswoman, takes pains trying to make the public understand that PacBell isn’t The System, just a small part of it. Had the decision been left to PacBell, she explains, the 818 area code wouldn’t have been split at all. PacBell would have given the region two area codes, with 626 being added to accommodate new growth.

So what is The System, anyway? At one level, it’s more than 20 telecommunications companies, from AT&T;, MCI and Sprint to local cellular and pager companies. They convened to decide how best to accommodate the region’s phenomenally growing need for more phone numbers.

The Valley may have always enjoyed a political advantage, but as Bonniksen explains, it had a technical one as well--a key piece of telecommunications hardware in Sherman Oaks called the Tandem Switch. This computerized station is vital to the cellular and pager companies--and had it been built in The Other Valley, folks in Monterey Park might be feeling a lot luckier today.

When the industry divined its preferred boundaries, it left 54% of the customers in 818 and the remainder in 626. City limits don’t mean much to this hard-wired network, so the industry’s split created an unnatural political and geographic split.

At the PUC, conventional politics kicked in. When Burbank, Glendale, La Crescenta and La Canada Flintridge won the right to remain in 818, people in The Other Valley had reason to be pleased too. As area codes go, small is beautiful.

The Valley’s victory will be brief. In its precise way, The System estimates that the new 818 will have to be split once again in 3.1 to 5.6 years. The 626 area code, meanwhile, will have a much longer life span--at least 12.4 years, perhaps as long as 43.4 years.

If that isn’t enough consolation for Al, he can take another look at that bulletin board. As one of his neighbors put it:

Yes, it would be nice if the SGV were given more attention, but that OTHER Valley, well, it is hotter, it rains more, floods more and the quakes hit harder over there. I love it here in the El Monte/Arcadia/Temple City area!