MTA to Revive Valley Subway-Rail Debate

The long-running dispute over the type of mass transit the San Fernando Valley should get, and the route it should follow, is about to be revived.

Current plans for an east-west subway are too costly and will take too long to complete, a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board said Tuesday, renewing the call for a train in the Ventura Freeway median strip.

The board member, James Cragin, said he will introduce a motion at the MTA planning committee meeting Thursday to appoint a panel of experts to again weigh the subway plan against the rival train proposal.

The federal government will not help to pay for a subway extension of a Metro Rail Red Line from North Hollywood to Woodland Hills over the next two decades because studies will show it would not get sufficient traffic, Cragin said.

“There is not enough density in the Valley to do a subway,” said Cragin, a Gardena city councilman.

MTA plans currently call for the subway to be built first from North Hollywood to the San Diego Freeway, and then on to Warner Center, in a $2.2-billion project to be completed by 2015.

Habib Balian, transportation deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor and MTA board member Mike Antonovich, said that an at-grade freeway train could be built from Studio City to Woodland Hills for $1.5 billion by 2001.

“You can see why contractors have been lobbying against this plan--it costs less,” Balian said.

Balian said Caltrans would have to widen the Ventura Freeway by 18 feet on each side to accommodate an at-grade train.

Antonovich has long promoted the concept of building a monorail or ground-level train instead of a subway. The MTA board weighed that option in a fractious debate in 1994 but voted to support a subway route running parallel to Burbank and Chandler boulevards, despite a prior victory by monorail proponents in a referendum.