ORIGIN OF THE ORANGE LINE WITH 2000 PHONE CALL, THE VALLEY HAD A BUSWAY.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

Bob Hertzberg, on deck as Assembly Speaker-elect, was in the governor's office fighting to get transportation funds for the San Fernando Valley when he stepped aside and called Valley Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

He whispered into the phone: ``How much do we need?''

He was asking about the Valley busway after the two had recently returned from a trip to Curitiba, Brazil, where they were won over by that city's renowned system of mass-transit busways.

The supervisor gave him a figure. Hertzberg got it in the budget.

In those key five minutes of early 2000, the two Valley leaders had essentially ended the Valley's decades-long battle over mass transit and launched what would become the Metro Orange Line.

``It was like winning the lottery,'' said Yaroslavsky. ``It brought it to life.''

The $330 million busway across the Valley opens next weekend, part of the latest trend in mass transit being watched nationwide.

Many Valley residents are still upset that it's a bus, not the train they had been promised for 20 years, ever since Los Angeles County voters passed the half-percent sales tax in 1980 - and another one in 1990 - for transportation.

But by the time Hertzberg was calling Yaroslavsky from the governor's office in 2000, the Valley's hopes for a train had long dimmed.

NIMBYs had protested rail lines in their neighborhoods, and by 1997, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was forced to shut down rail construction following the Red Line construction fiascoes of the 1990s.

The Valley was left with nothing but two laws that virtually prevented rail: a state law mandating that any line down Chandler Boulevard be a subway and a county law banning MTA from building subways with sales taxes.

Hertzberg, Yaroslavsky, then-Mayor Richard Riordan and others returned from Curitiba in 1999 promoting the busway to a jaded public.

``It was almost like this was the last chance,'' said Bruce Ackerman, president and CEO of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley.

Yaroslavsky told a group of transportation leaders recently that he originally had no interest in the Curitiba trip, skeptical of the foreign system.

``Within 15 minutes of seeing their bus system, all of us looked at it and said, 'This makes sense for Los Angeles,''' he recalled.

On the trip back home, he sketched out a Valley system on an airplane napkin.

His napkin map - and the $265 million Hertzberg secured that day in the governor's office - provided for three busways: the Orange Line, as well as connecting north-south lines along Van Nuys Boulevard and Canoga Avenue.

But the other lines got shelved with state budget cuts, and the MTA had to borrow against a promised state reimbursement for the Orange Line.

As building continued, so did opposition.

Resident Diana Lipari - whose group Citizens Organized for Smart Transit successfully sued to shut down the project before winning a $300,000 settlement from the MTA - still opposes the line, saying the MTA should have concentrated on beefing up the Valley bus system.

``It's a waste of money,'' said Lipari, a real estate agent. ``You're not going to get people out of their cars, off the freeway and onto the bus.''

In the end, said longtime Valley activist Gerry Silver of Encino, other Valley residents give the busway ``lukewarm'' support, not because it's the best route, but because it takes the pressure off alternatives - such as double-decking the Ventura Freeway.

``Everybody just realized it was a compromise,'' he said. ``There was no money to do anything else.''

Lisa Mascaro, [phone]

lisa.mascaro(at)dailynews.com

Memories of those who made busway

The money man

Former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg

Hertzberg became ``fixated'' on finding traffic solutions after having campaigned on the issue when he first ran for office in 1995. When he saw the chance to fund the Orange Line, he seized it.

``It was one of the most magnificent moments of my time in public service,'' he said. ``We brought a transit system to the Valley.''

The big-picture planners

The MTA's Kathleen Sanchez and Kevin Michel

Michel and Sanchez sketched out the 14-mile route through the Valley, one of two like it nationwide, turning what has been a nearly century-old rail line into the Orange Line and its adjacent bikeway.

``We are breaking new ground in some ways,'' said Michel, the MTA's director of Valley planning. ``We are giving people an option to get out of their cars and use transit.''

The busway builder

The MTA's Roger Dames

Dames, a civil engineer and Army veteran who's designed everything from nuclear power plants in the United States to an industrial complex in Saudi Arabia, managed the Orange Line through thick and thin. Obstacles he's hurdled include soil contamination, a court-ordered work stoppage and last winter's near-record rainfall.

``Every project tends to have challenges when you're out on the surface going through a big city,'' said Dames, the MTA's project manager. ``Since I'm also a resident of the San Fernando Valley, it's something that makes me feel good to be able to contribute to something that makes the Valley a better place.''

The green-light guru

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation's Sean Skehan

An electrical engineer who built the computer system for the city's traffic lights in his garage about a decade ago, Skehan was the guy to call to figure out the signals for the busway.

``How can we do it in a way that won't disrupt the whole traffic network in the Valley? That became part of the challenge,'' said Skehan.

The solution? He built a new software program to synchronize the lights.

The bosses of the buses

The MTA's Richard Hunt, Gary Spivack and George Trudeau

The Valley operations trio has spent months training the drivers about where to slow down, where to speed up and how to make sure the buses run on time. They've got decades of combined experience at the MTA.

``It's an opportunity,'' said Hunt, the MTA's Valley general manager. ``People in this organization can really look back at the end of the day and say, 'We did this.'''

The political powerhouse

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky

Yaroslavsky recently joked he could count on one hand those who joined him in the often lonely battle for the busway. He believes the Orange Line can be a prototype for transit in Los Angeles.

``This is another busway along life's precipitous course, or it's a revolution,'' he said. ``Our charge is not to solve the traffic problem for Los Angeles County. We can't solve the problem. We have too many cars. But what we can do is offer people an alternative to the parking lot that is the 101.''

CAPTION(S):

7 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) A Southern Pacific Railroad locomotive heads west from the 170 overpass on Chandler Boulevard in a 1968 photo.

(2) Passengers look out of a train moving away from the Van Nuys train depot in 1968.

Photo courtesy of Jim Walker 

(3 -- color) In a replay of the 1968 photo above, a new Metroliner heads west on the Orange Line busway near Chandler Boulevard and Colfax Avenue, near the 170 overpass.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

(4) Former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg

(5) The MTA's Roger Dames

(6) The Los Angeles Department of Transportation's Sean Skehan

(7) Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky

Box:

Memories of those who made busway (see text)