Transit in Valley

I find it ironic that some San Fernando Valley residents, politicians and news media are criticizing the MTA’s inability to build rail in the Valley. The MTA and its predecessor agency, the Los Angeles County Transportation Authority, have tried for 13 years to find some rail project that is acceptable to the Valley. Everything proposed is quickly opposed by one group or another.

As director of rail planning for the LACTC [Los Angeles County Transportation Commission] during the 1980s, I was involved in planning rail in the Valley for six years. The east-west corridor through the Valley was one of the high-priority corridors approved by LACTC for early rail implementation in 1983, and light rail was designated the most appropriate mode by the LACTC in 1984. What should have been the next step, selection of the most appropriate alignment for a light rail system, degenerated over the years into an orgy of NIMBY-ism (not in my backyard). In 1990, afraid indecision would cause breakup and loss of a possible corridor, the LACTC purchased the Burbank-Chandler right of way, along with several other key Southern Pacific holdings. The parade of studies has continued since, with alternatives ranging across every conceivable mode and alignment.

In 1990, frustrated by our inability to move forward, I asked to be reassigned to the Metrolink project, just then being envisioned. To avoid the NIMBY curse, the SCRRA [Southern California Regional Rail Authority] used a section of the California Environmental Quality Act which categorically exempts the improvement of railroad rights of way from the environmental clearance process. As a result, the initial Metrolink system was implemented in two years--by MTA staff. Although the SCRRA is a separate, five-county agency, until 1996 it was staffed by MTA employees.

The MTA is not the real problem in the San Fernando Valley. It has a long history of sincerely trying to find a solution; it has spent millions of dollars studying and restudying rail alternatives over 13 years; it has spent over $100 million protecting various alignments; and some of its staff, given the chance, built the Metrolink project through the Valley in record time. The real problem seems to be an unwillingness by the Valley to control the 1% who use the planning process to block any project benefiting the 99%. The Valley needs to stop blaming convenient scapegoats like the MTA and figure out how to control its own NIMBYs.

RICHARD STANGER

Executive Director,

Southern California Regional

Rail Authority

* The Scott Harris column (“Mel Wilson Wants to Get Off This Train,” May 29), regarding the politics of the MTA and the future of the San Fernando Valley rail project, gives the impression that there is no consensus in the Valley. In fact the people of the Valley have spoken, and 90% of them, in a 1990 referendum, did not want a subway. This year The Times conducted a poll on the issue and the majority is still opposed to the subway.

It is undeniable that the federal government cannot afford a $350-million-per-mile subway. The MTA should cut the cord from the subway special interests for a cost-effective, $70-million-a-mile light rail alternative, which the private sector is willing to build with its own money. Building five miles of light rail for what one mile of subway costs makes sense. Such a project could begin immediately--instead of decades hence--and would provide instant improvement to the congestion and air quality in the Valley. It would also provide regional benefits by extending eastward to the Pasadena Blue Line and westward to Ventura County.

MICHAEL D. ANTONOVICH

Supervisor, 5th District

* The article on the delay of the Valley Rail Line is just one more reason to support the secession of the Valley from the city government and Los Angeles Unified School District (“MTA ‘Recovery Plan’ Would Delay Valley Rail Line,” June 4). A rail line would relieve traffic congestion, provide students and seniors with a viable means of transportation and reduce pollution. But no! If the Valley were its own political entity, a bureaucracy would still exist but it would be far more responsive to Valley residents’ concerns.

CHRISTA KNEBEL

Sherman Oaks