Key Panel Votes to Abandon East-West Subway

A key Metropolitan Transportation Authority committee chaired by Mayor Richard Riordan voted decisively Thursday not to seek money from the federal government to design an east-west subway in the San Fernando Valley, a move that could effectively kill any lingering chance that commuters would one day travel underground from North Hollywood to Woodland Hills.

The MTA’s executive management committee also voted for the first time to urge state legislators to repeal a law that requires that any rail system built along a two-mile stretch of the cross-Valley rail route be constructed underground.

The move, the latest in years of wrangling over mass transit within the Valley, would leave the door open to the construction of aboveground rail routes. But there will simply never be money available for a subway, Riordan said.

The decision, which does not become county policy until adopted by a meeting of the full MTA board, came unexpectedly as part of a wider discussion of the agency’s strategy to obtain federal transportation funding over the next six years.

Riordan backed the concept of an elevated rail line across the Valley when he ran for mayor in 1994. Several months after taking office, however, he voted to build a subway instead, but then a year later, the mayor again signaled his opposition to a subway route.

On Thursday, he turned his words to action, voting for the first time to back away from ever building an underground system west from a Metro Rail Red Line station now being built on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood. That line will connect North Hollywood to downtown by subway, a separate project that has been under construction for nearly a decade.

“If the goal is to provide the Valley with an efficient, safe and cost-effective mass transit system, then the subway is not an option--there is simply not enough money to go that route,” the mayor said in a written statement.

The mayor said his move was intended to “spur the MTA to develop realistic transit options” for the Valley. If the agency does not study alternative ways of developing mass-transit in the area, he said, “the Valley will not get its fair share--and that is not an option.”

The vote was 5 to 1, with Duarte Councilman John Fasana, businessman Nick Patsouras, Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alatorre and Glendale Councilman Larry Zarian concurring with the mayor. County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke opposed the measure. She could not be reached for comment.

“This has been talked about for a year, but the reality is that the money is not available for subway in the Valley,” said Fasana, who introduced the motion.

“This vote allows us to focus on options that make sense for the entire Valley that are more affordable than the subway.”

The action cheered opponents of the subway but distressed activists who have long demanded that the entire Valley get a quiet, underground transportation system.

In 1991, a band of subway proponents led by then-state Sen. Alan Robbins enshrined in state law a requirement that any rail between North Hollywood and Hazeltine Street in Van Nuys be a deep-bore subway.

One of the main aims of the legislation was to prevent splitting a Jewish community along Chandler Boulevard with an aboveground rail line because congregants are required by religious rules to walk to their synagogues.

“I am thoroughly disturbed and amazed that the mayor would take such a position,” said Rabbi Marvin J. Sugarman, leader of the Shaarev Zedek synagogue in Van Nuys.

“He had promised that he would not seek a repeal of the state bill requiring a subway. I believe that the mayor is in for a real fight. We will have lawsuits that will drag this out until eternity.”

Richard Close, a Sherman Oaks homeowners leader, expressed disappointment but little surprise at the vote.

“We have long backed a subway, but there has been a recognition that because of negligence and mismanagement at the MTA, the money that is necessary for underground construction in the Valley has been squandered elsewhere,” he said.

Close urged the mayor to now move quickly to develop a new rapid-transit plan for the area.

Gerald Silver, an Encino homeowners leader who led opposition to the elevated line, said he too regretted the passing of an era.

“The Robbins bill was passed in halcyon days of plenty of money and optimism, but now the chickens have come home to roost. A subway is just unreasonable today,” he conceded.

County supervisor and MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky said he was “blown away” by Riordan’s vote. “For this recommendation to come out of left field without the involvement of the area’s businesses and residents is perplexing,” Yaroslavsky said. “This boneheaded play will retard the date that rail will come to the Valley.”

Yaroslavsky said hearings on an environmental study scheduled for release in the spring will provide the best opportunity for residents and merchants to decide on the future of the east-west line in the Valley.