Funds OKd for Valley Transit Hub

After years of idling, a plan to build a $4-million transit center in the southwest San Fernando Valley is finally skimming ahead full throttle.

The City Council approved the use of federal money for part of the center Tuesday, pushing ahead a project first broached as part of the Warner Center Specific Plan six years ago. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will provide about $2 million to build the center, with nearly $1 million in federal funds and money collected from local developers making up the rest.

Envisioned as a broad, tree-lined avenue flanked by bus shelters, the Warner Center Transit Hub will serve as a focal point of a regional bus system, transportation planners said. Instead of following a grid pattern across the Valley, buses will fan out from Warner Center as though they were tracing spokes on a wheel, making for fewer transfers and quicker commutes.

“Even though Warner Center is an important employment site in the Valley, the transit lines don’t serve it directly,” said Philip Aker, a transit planner for the city’s Department of Transportation.

If passengers want to travel from Sylmar to Warner Center, for example, they would now take a long bus ride heading west across the Valley, Aker said. Then they would have to transfer to a bus heading south. But some bus lines operate infrequently, and if these commuters miss their connection by a minute or two, Aker said, “They might have to wait another half hour to an hour.”

The center would mainly serve thousands of workers who make their way--usually in their own cars--to and from Warner Center each day. Though primarily a business district that houses the Promenade mall and companies like Blue Cross and Litton Industries, the area is also home to about 7,500 to 10,000 residents.

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Christopher Park, executive director of the nonprofit Warner Center Transportation Management Organization, said that 69% of Warner Center’s estimated 40,000 employees drive to work alone.

Carpooling has become the most popular alternative, Park said, with 23% choosing to share rides. Only 3% of Warner Center’s commuters take the bus, and the rest use vanpools, walk or bike to work.

“The problem, up to now, has been that we have a business center and a lot of people who commute, but we have not had a transit hub,” Park said. “So this is wonderful.”

The Valley already has a few transportation hubs, such as the Metrolink stations in Chatsworth and Burbank, and others in the works, including new Metro Red Line subway stations scheduled to open next year in North Hollywood and Universal City.

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The Warner Center hub will not include light rail, planners said, but other transportation options will be integrated.

Already, the 11,000-acre district is served by express buses ferrying riders from the Santa Clarita, Antelope, Conejo and Simi valleys and by city-run DASH buses that whisk riders around Warner Center.

“It’s a big step forward,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, who represents the southwest Valley. “The Specific Plan said, ‘Let’s concentrate commercial density in a commercial center and then fold in transportation and housing policy,’ ” she said.

“I’m ashamed we don’t do more of that in the city, but I’m very pleased and proud that we’re doing it in the West Valley.”

Chick said she hopes the transit hub, to be constructed along Owensmouth Avenue between Oxnard and Erwin streets, will also draw businesses that cater to the commuting crowd, such as coffee and newspaper stands.