Valley Group to Ride the Rails on MTA Day

About 100 representatives of Valley chambers of commerce and homeowner groups are planning to declare Friday MTA Day despite a seemingly grim outlook for a San Fernando Valley rail line.

The group will mark the event with a daylong series of rides on the Red and Blue Lines and Metrolink trains. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, while not an official event sponsor, agreed to contribute 100 free rail passes.

“When they go on the rail lines and they see how nice they are, they will see that building special busways is not the answer,” said Brian Fagan, a Sherman Oaks resident and secretary of the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce. “Here we are in a first-rate city in a first-rate country. We deserve to have a first-rate transit system.”

Fagan said invitations were extended to Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and acting MTA chief Linda Bohlinger so that they might appreciate the spirit of the rail-riders.

“We wanted to give everybody an opportunity to see the rail lines,” Fagan said. “They see it in the news and they hear about it, but most of those people don’t really get a chance to go on it.”

Early Friday, participants in the event will depart for downtown from Metrolink stations in Chatsworth and Burbank.

They will tour Union Station and MTA headquarters downtown and then sample the Red Line out to the Mid-Wilshire area and back again. After lunch, they will climb aboard the Blue Line to Watts and then tour the MTA’s “nerve center.”

John Warner, executive director of the United Chambers of Commerce, called the event “an inspection trip. It will get us familiar with what we’re talking about as the debate continues.”