The Future Holds Faster Buses, Not More Trains

It’s bound to baffle some map-toting tourist, this stubby leg of a subway barely jutting into the San Fernando Valley.

Is that all? The end of the line?

For rail projects in the Valley, at least for the foreseeable future, the answer is probably yes.

Instead of boarding a train to zip across the rest of the Valley, future riders disembarking at North Hollywood will most likely head to the nearest bus stop--or fetch their cars--to complete the trip. By most accounts, short-term prospects for additional rail in the Valley are dim. Subways are especially unlikely, given a 1998 voter-approved law barring the use of transit sales taxes to build them.

While transit planners haven’t ruled out light rail, they estimate a fixed busway could be built for 20% to 25% of the cost of a light rail line, an option that has long aroused neighborhood opposition.

“We finally concluded that what the Valley is looking for is a rubber-tire solution,” said David Fleming, a former member of the California Transportation Commission who chairs the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley.

At the moment, buses--particularly high-speed vehicles that cruise along dedicated lanes and stop just once a mile--have gained political momentum.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority recently launched an environmental study for a 14-mile rapid busway across the Valley floor, from the North Hollywood subway station to Warner Center. Gov. Gray Davis has proposed $245 million in state funding for the $291-million project, which involves building an exclusive east-west route for buses.

Some of that money, if approved by the state Legislature, could be used to create a similar north-south busway across the Valley, said Paul Hefner, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks).

The MTA is also debuting express buses on three corridors citywide, including a Ventura Boulevard line. These buses will travel on ordinary streets, but they are equipped with transponders that switch signal lights to green.

With several large housing developments, such as the 21,000-home Newhall Ranch, planned for the fringes of the Valley region, transportation planners are pressed to quickly develop alternatives to the already-choked freeway system.

“I think you’re going to see solutions that can be put in place in a relatively short amount of time to relieve congestion,” said Richard Katz, a former chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee.

Jim de la Loza, the MTA’s executive officer for regional planning, said express buses could help ferry commuters to their homes on the county’s northern and western boundaries.

“They’re much more flexible, because you don’t need to have an exclusive lane,” he said. Smaller networks of shuttles or vans could work within a larger grid of rapid buses, carrying passengers for short distances and feeding them into the broader network.

In the meantime, the MTA hasn’t given up on the possibility of more trains someday chugging into the Valley. The proposed east-west busway is being designed to be “easily converted” to rail--just in case, De la Loza said.

“It’s all a question of money,” said county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who wrote the ballot initiative that effectively killed new subway construction in Los Angeles.

“If 15 years from now we won the lottery and wanted to replace the busway with light rail, we could do that,” he said. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think busways will work.”