MTA Board OKs 2 Plans to Address Valley Traffic

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority endorsed two proposals Thursday that could reduce the city’s traffic snarls, particularly in the San Fernando Valley.

The first is a study of improvements to the perennially clogged Ventura Freeway. The other plan calls for engineering work for three transit corridors in Los Angeles, including a busway along Burbank and Chandler boulevards.

The MTA board agreed to chip in $500,000 toward the 40-mile study of the Ventura and Hollywood freeways, a project favored by Gov. Gray Davis in his April traffic congestion initiative.

Total cost of that study--which will examine the 101 from the Harbor Freeway in downtown Los Angeles to the Moorpark Freeway in Ventura County--is estimated at $4.5 million. As part of his initiative, Davis included $3 million toward the study.

The MTA board also agreed to start the engineering process and a federal funding request for studies of three transit corridor projects--a dedicated busway along Burbank and Chandler boulevards in the Valley, a rapid-bus project along Wilshire Boulevard, and a light-rail line on the Eastside through Boyle Heights.

The dedicated bus route on Burbank and Chandler boulevards would connect to the new North Hollywood Red Line station scheduled to open Saturday and travel west to the Warner Center transit hub.

Before the vote, board member and county Supervisor Mike Antonovich counseled a delay until the Davis proposal becomes law. “It’s presumed financing,” he said. “We shouldn’t prejudge the funding.”

Deborah Orosz, an organizer with the Bus Riders Union, also objected to the trio of projects, calling them a violation of federal court orders requiring the purchase of hundreds of buses to improve service citywide.

“We want to see the board send a message to the governor and the Legislature that it needs to fulfill its consent decree,” Orosz said. “And not for busway and rail projects.”

But the board majority countered that it was imperative to move forward with the projects to meet a federal approval deadline in August. Missing that deadline, board members said, could postpone the projects by at least six months.

In the Valley, the Burbank/Chandler busway would travel along a former railroad right of way, with low-floor buses that allow passengers to step directly from the platform onto the bus, and shelters similar to ones used at light-rail stations, said Kevin Michel, an MTA transportation planning manager on the project.

Articulated buses--caterpillar-like vehicles that combine two passenger sections with an accordion-shaped midsection--may be used.

Davis has also pledged $245 million for this project, which has a price tag of $290 million.

If all goes as planned, contracts for the engineering studies may be awarded in November. Preliminary engineering work for the Eastside light-rail is estimated at $12 million, and the Wilshire and Valley corridors will each cost $4 million, according to the MTA.

MTA board member and Councilman Hal Bernson said the three corridors are new, much-needed transportation concepts for Los Angeles. “We can’t build subways everywhere in the city,” he said. “They could be a big incentive to get people out of their cars.”

Politically, the Wilshire route may prove to be the most vexing proposal, Bernson said. Some council members have already rallied behind businesses who fear the project will hurt them.

“I don’t think it will require eminent domain, but it may take some of their parking away,” Bernson said.

Eastside interests lobbied hard to secure plans for light rail, not a bus project. Communities from the edge of Little Tokyo to Boyle Heights had their “heart set on a subway,” said Kimberlee Tachiki, a field deputy for Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles).