PUBLIC FORUM : SUBWAY SUBSTITUTES: HOW ABOUT TRYING A TROLLEY-BUS?

I have been a bus operator for the MTA for six years, and I have come to learn the importance of mass transit to a city the size of Los Angeles. But I have to admit that the cost of a subway is just too much and just too far off into the future for anybody to appreciate. What we need is fast-to-build and inexpensive mass transit.

The MTA already owns the right of way to the railroad line that runs from North Hollywood, where the Metro Rail Red Line is being built, to the MTA Chatsworth bus yard, which is only a hop, skip and a jump to the Chatsworth Metrolink station. So, I believe it would be faster to build and at a fraction of the cost, an electric trolley busway along that line. All the Valley buses either cross that line or come within rerouting distance of it.

An electric trolley busway would serve the Valley better than a conventional light-rail line. It would not be limited to just a few stations but it could stop at any street for the commuters' convenience. In a major earthquake, the electric trolley busway could be put back into service faster than a subway, and in the event of no electricity, the busway could be used by conventional buses.

A few years before the MTA took over, the Rapid Transit District made a study of trolley buses in other cities and had a plan to build a system in Los Angeles. The MTA should look into that study, and give up on the subway.

- John A. Singleton Saugus

Not only should the subway plan be grounded, it should be buried - forever. Subways are a great form of mass transportation but to be practical they must be built as a community is built, not retroactively.

What can we do now? Easy, send the ``study committees'' to San Francisco and Seattle to watch the electric buses. While they are gone, do two things simultaneously. Order a fleet of clean, quiet electric buses and have the wealthy DWP string east-west overhead lines on Victory or Ventura boulevards. If not the boulevard then pave the railroad right of way in asphalt and run the buses there.

- Tom Montali Woodland Hills

I support county Supervisor Michael Antonovich's views of the economics associated with digging a subway route through our Valley.

I would embrace Antonovich's monorail idea over and over again as opposed to the financially inconceivable, money-draining tunnel.

Those who pledge to fight for the subway are only delaying the project and will cause us to forfeit even more funds needed to satisfy the transportation needs of the San Fernando Valley.

- Michael C. Hines West Hills

The subway should be dropped because of the danger of a severe earthquake in the Los Angeles area.

Instead of a subway that might not be used by many people, we need a better quality of bus service in Los Angeles.

- Ann Miller North Hollywood

The solution to the MTA's transportation problems in Los Angeles County is buses.

There is no need to build anything more. We already have more than 20,000 miles of roads in Los Angeles County. The entire bus system can be provided for less than the amount that the MTA planned on spending for tunneling through the mountains from Hollywood to North Hollywood.

Forget the bus system that exists today. Eliminate it from your minds and our streets. Replace that failed system with a bus system like no other bus system that exists.

Mini-vans pick you up at your door and take you anywhere you want to go in L.A. County. Each freeway would have two types of large buses: local and express, which operate only on that freeway. Locals stop at all on- and off-ramps (each is a main street) and return. Express buses stop only at other freeways and returWn.

Each freeway bus replaces 50 single-passenger cars. This clears the freeways of congestion and clears the air.

- Dorothy Peacock Glendale

Elevated lines work very well in Chicago. They could be built more rapidly and at less cost to the taxpayers than a subway.

- Raiford L. Langford Sherman Oaks

Although a subway is being built in many areas of Los Angeles, it looks like the San Fernando Valley will be getting a cheaper, slower transit system with less capacity.

The question residents and businesses of the Valley should be asking is: Why again are we receiving too little too late?

The Valley represents over 40 percent of the city's population. The large

population and the fact that the Valley is spread out means that we should receive a high-capacity, fast transit system and it should be built in the next couple of years as we were promised.

The Valley must receive its fair share of all city services and programs - including rapid transit.

- Matt Epstein Vice President Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association

Here we go again. MTA officials who think they know best are flip-flopping on the subway in the Valley.

First they forced the Burbank/Chandler route on us, in spite of very strong opposition. Then they tried to appease us with legislation by former state Sen. Alan Robbins, whose SB 211 required that any heavy-rail transit line crossing residential neighborhoods in North Hollywood and Van Nuys must be subway. Experience told us that ``what legislators giveth, legislators can taketh away'' and we now have legislators ready to repeal the Robbins subway protection.

We believe it's been proved that our legislators don't know best. They should have listened to the 102,810 voters who, in a 1990 advisory vote, overwhelmingly chose a technology along the Ventura Freeway. Not only would the freeway technology have been much less costly, it would be operational today.

Based on past failings with subway construction, cost overruns and sinkholes in Hollywood and NorWth Hollywood, the freeway technology makes even more sense today than it did in 1990.

- Don Schultz President Prudy Schultz Director Van Nuys Homeowners Association

The MTA should abandon the subway right where it's at in North Hollywood-Universal City and bring it out of the ground as a light-rail electric trolley. The trolley could run the Chandler/Oxnard route to the Warner Center and even continue to hook up with the Chatsworth Metrolink station.

This would give the San Fernando Valley two east-west rail routes and one north-south route.

Homeowner associations that complain about noise, crime or whatever should note that a trolley is a better alternative to the ailing diesel bus system that runs through their neighborhoods and should look at the smooth, clean operation of the San Diego trolley system.

Light electric rail was a great option for Los Angeles with the Big Red cars in the past and it can be today. All we have to do is cut through the red tape.

- P.J. Zimmerman Woodland Hills

I cannot understand why the powers that be still haven't recognized what the interested public needs and wants: a system that fulfills the needs of the people who need this - namely people who work.

Having a subway or light rail line just a mile from the freeway seems ridiculous.

People have been saying for years to put this needed transportation, in any form, down Sherman Way. Certainly there is enough room, and it wouldn't be disrupting quiet, peaceful neighborhoods.

- Carol M. Testa Encino

We all know the Los Angeles area needed a better public transportation system 20 years ago. Now we play catch-up. The traffic will not just go away. Most major cities of the nation have subway systems.

Adding buses and encouraging car pools will not solve the problem. Those buses use the same roads as we do.

Above-ground trains will cause the same problems. These trains don't float over busy intersections; they go through them just like the cars we drive. Subways cost more but thWey are not affected by other traffic or even weather conditions.

Most people who don't want the subway probably don't ride the bus. Think about the future. It only gets worse from here.

- Dennis Carter Palmdale

The MTA has followed a policy of politics rather than seeking the proper method of determining what transportation system is best for the Valley. A real injustice was made when Robbins steam-rollered a law to mandate a subway for the east-west line, rather than allow reasonable people to make decisions. That was based largely on politics and the views of a minority of people.

Sooner or later the MTA must realize how inept it has been. Just look at the Taj Mahal it built in downtown Los Angeles.

Mayor Richard Riordan was right in changing his vote, as he can see the handwriting on the wall.

- John Adams Northridge

Anything that gets people out of cars and off the freeways is a good thing but usually the alternatives have drawbacks. Van pools usually work only if the commuters live in the same small area and work in a similar one while rail and bus commuter lines only get one to within a few miles of work, forcing workers to use local bus lines.

I propose an alternative by combining both van pool and transit and making local area transit van pools. Every member of the van pool would work within a small area close to a rail or bus drop-off but each could live some distance apart.

This simple idea could get thousands of cars off the freeways and enhance the idea of rail and bus transit.

- Daniel Matonak Canoga Park

Many other cities are competing for federal transit dollars. We need to design a superior system to compete favorably. The old Southern Pacific alignment, which runs through the middle of the Valley on the MTA-owned right of way from Burbank to Woodland Hills, is the best choice for the Valley's first transit project because of its proximity to a combination of business and residential districts, as well as the Van Nuys Government Center and both of Wthe Valley's community colleges.

Yes, I did say ``first transit project'' because the Valley also competes with the rest of L.A. County, and while we were waiting, the MTA has provided residents of the Watts neighborhood with intersecting Green and Blue lines, which travel in every direction a map affords. If we are supportive of the Valley issues we may be as fortunate.

Sean Bainbridge Burbank

Freeway system could be answer

THE San Fernando Valley will have rail transit this century if MTA board members are willing to remove the decaying corpse of the subway and be responsive to the community, not just the special interests.

Construction of the $350 million per mile Red Line subway - the nation's most costly public works project - retards vital transit projects throughout the 4,200 square miles of Los Angeles County's 88 cities and 137 unincorporated communities.

The subway's costs were deliberately low-balled to hide their true budgets, falsely raising the expectations for a system that could serve the entire county. Instead, billions of dollars have been spent for a few miles of track, which has resulted in $2 billion of pending litigation.

All the alternatives to the subway must be considered, including an at-grade rail system in the middle of the 134-101 freeways from Buena Vista Street to Valley Circle Boulevard, which would serve the Burbank Media Center, Warner Center and allow for a regional transit system to Ventura County.

The freeway system would be $500 million cheaper than the Burbank/Chandler subway, would not impact the communities, and would allow for Burbank/Chandler to become a permanent green belt with bike trails.

- Michael D. Antonovich 

Supervisor, 5th District

Los Angeles

Committing to affordable

Valley line

THE MTA's current plan, which emerged in the 1980s, promised an extensive, countywide rail system as well as improvements to our bus system and our highways. Unfortunately, this vision was based on faulty financial assumptions. Now that the fiscal realities are crystal clear, we must find more cost-effective ways to provide mass transit across the Valley to Warner Center.

Building a subway in the Valley would cost $200 million to $300 million in taxpayer dollars per mile. The subway dream is unrealistic; the money would run out before the subway reached the San Diego Freeway. We must be fiscally prudent in our decision-making - and we must use common sense.

As we revisit our options, some may renew calls for one idea that has already been dismissed. The proposed Ventura Freeway monorail, already rejected by the MTA Board, is an imprudent proposition that would squander tax dollars already spent to secure the Burbank-Chandler right-of-way. Moreover, a freeway rail program would bar future expansion of the car pool system on the Ventura Freeway.

This spring, the MTA Board will vote on the east-west line. I am pursuing a cost-effective solution that reaches across the Valley to Warner Center and beyond, and I urge residents and businesses to join me. The Valley deserves nothing less. If we fail to act, the Valley's fair share of funding will be swept up and spent elsewhere.

My commitment - and the challenge of the MTA Board - is to design an affordable line that addresses neighborhood concerns over safety, noise and visual impacts. Let us look back to the original reasons for creating a mass-transit system in Los Angeles: reduced traffic, easy access, greater mobility and cleaner air. We need a cost-effective means of transit that links the entire Valley, and we need it as soon as possible.

Richard J. Riordan

Mayor

Los Angeles

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Photo: Construction workers lower materials into the Metro Rail station in North Hollywood.