MTA Offers Long-Range Transit Plan for Region

Think 25 years down the road, with an estimated influx of another 3 million people to Los Angeles County.

The image is a region of packed freeways and streets, far worse than even today’s ugliest commuter days.

It’s an unsettling vision the Metropolitan Transportation Authority would like to avoid through a long-range plan that would add more freeway carpool lines, expand rapid-bus service and Metrolink trains and dozens of other transit options.

“It’s like adding another city of Los Angeles to the county,” said Brad McAllester, MTA director of regional planning. “These improvements will improve freeway speeds more than building and expanding freeways.”

After nearly a year of community meetings and research by staff members, a draft of the MTA’s Long Range Transportation Plan for Los Angeles County is ready for public comment.

Many of the projects scheduled for the San Fernando Valley are already in the planning or draft stages.

The projects include:

* Adding three rapid-bus routes. The buses make fewer stops and are able to hold lights green during trips.

One would travel 20 miles along Van Nuys Boulevard starting in San Fernando, run south through Pacoima to Ventura Boulevard, then possibly east to the Universal City subway station (also a station for the Ventura Boulevard rapid bus).

Service could begin in 2003.

A second rapid bus would travel 25 miles along San Fernando Road from San Fernando to downtown Los Angeles. Service could begin in 2006.

A third, 30-mile route would travel along Roscoe Boulevard from the Warner Center transit center east to the North Hollywood subway station. Service would begin in 2009.

The Van Nuys Boulevard route might work as a dedicated bus lane, where buses would run separately from other vehicles, said Rex Gephart, MTA manager for the rapid-bus program.

The rapid-bus debut in June added more bus riders on Ventura Boulevard, with about 14,000 a day who use rapid and local buses, Gephart said.

Prior ridership on local and limited buses along the street was about 11,000 daily riders.

* Additional carpool lanes are planned for the San Diego Freeway from the Santa Monica Freeway north to Burbank Boulevard; the Golden State Freeway from the Ventura Freeway north to the Hollywood Freeway in the Valley; along the Hollywood Freeway north to the Golden State and Ronald Reagan freeways, and from the Reagan Freeway to the Antelope Valley Freeway.

* Additional Metrolink train service along existing routes.

* New busways, including the bus-only east-west route along Chandler and Burbank boulevards, and a proposed north-south busway in the northeast Valley.

* The return of articulated buses on high-ridership routes in the Valley and throughout the city.

* More bikeways and pedestrian area improvements.

* Creation of transit service, possibly shuttles, that deliver riders from their homes directly to other transit centers at subway or bus stops.

Although the inch-thick MTA document lists dozens of strategies and proposals to encourage people to give up their cars, transit advocates are still wary of the plan’s effectiveness given the growth in the county.

“It is fulfilling the requirements within the constraints of politics and finances, and it tries to at least state the problem and do what it can to address what needs to be done,” said Dana Gabbard, executive secretary for the Southern California Transit Advocates. “But the big problem is the region is in a state of denial.”

Gabbard credited the MTA for its rapid-bus program, but said the region’s transportation needs can’t be addressed by expanded and improved bus service.

The Valley also suffers from its inability to settle community and political squabbles over proposed transit fixes, Gabbard said.

“The people in the Valley say they want something, but now these groups have been fighting over the routes.”

One group, Concerned Citizens Transit Coalition, recently issued its own report opposing the Chandler busway.

“This busway presents a tremendous hazard,” said coalition member Fritz Friedman, whose group cites the proximity of synagogues, schools and homes along the proposed busway.

“We would be happy if they had a subway underneath,” he said.

Friedman said Oxnard Street would be a preferable busway route, but Gabbard said such arguments are indicative of how the Valley handicaps itself.

“It will demand sacrifice,” Gabbard said of the Valley’s needs and the MTA’s transit plan.

“There really are no parents in this . . . to set the priorities and [decide] how to address the problem.”

A series of public meetings are scheduled, including a 6 p.m. session Feb. 22 in the MTA board room.

The board is expected to adopt the final plan in April.