SUBWAY EXTENSION IS WASTEFUL, MISGUIDED COUNTY WOULD BE BETTER SERVED WITH COST-EFFECTIVE TRANSIT SYSTEM.

Byline: Michael D. Antonovich 

LOS Angeles County's diverse 88 cities and 137 unincorporated communities require a cost-effective ground and air transportation plan to meet the needs of our citizens.

Our regional airports, a light-rail network, signal synchronization systems, alternative work schedules, nonpeak-hour truck delivery and the Alameda Corridor East project will have a significant positive impact in reducing congestion and improving air quality and safety.

Unfortunately, some local politicians and bureaucrats now wish to take federal and state money away from many of these effective transportation programs to have the federal government build another subway extension down Wilshire to the Westside.

This misguided effort ignores the catastrophic fiscal problems the subway brought to our county.

The existing $5 billion-plus, 17-mile subway took more than three decades to build, destroyed jobs and neighborhoods in its construction path and served the vested interests at the expense of taxpayers and transit riders.

However, on the other hand, a comprehensive at-grade and aboveground light-rail system will lead to improved productivity, reduced air pollution, and increased mobility for our citizens.

For approximately the same cost as the 17-mile stretch of subway, taxpayers could have had 100 miles of relatively cost-effective light-rail service.

Utilizing existing freeway medians and abandoned railroad rights-of-way, a light-rail line could have run through Santa Clarita into the Antelope Valley and through the San Fernando Valley toward Ventura County and take commuters 20 miles beyond the Pasadena Gold Line, through the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys.

Costing just more than $700 million - not billions of dollars - and built in years, not decades, the soon-to-be-opened Gold Line runs 13.7 miles with six stations from the center of the 210 Freeway in Pasadena to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Operational in early 2003, it will serve commuters in Pasadena, South Pasadena, Highland Park, Lincoln Heights, Chinatown and Los Angeles.

By setting proper budgetary priorities and with a vision for the region's future, the Gold Line is a vital link in the county's multimodal transportation system made up of buses, light rail, commuter rail and highway/street improvements.

For roughly $800 million, Phase II of the Gold Line - which will run an additional 24 miles and include nine stations to the San Bernardino County line serving Pasadena, Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale, Azusa, Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona and Claremont - could be completed in 2008.

The total Gold Line will run nearly 40 miles and cost close to $1.5 billion. Compare that to the mere 17 miles of subway that cost taxpayers more than $5 billion.

Building an affordable regional-transportation system will provide the infrastructure to expand our regional airports necessary to accommodate the additional 77 million passengers expected by 2020.

A workable regional airport plan must include the opening of the Palmdale Airport and expanded service at Ontario. This is the only viable alternative to overreliance on the dangerously overextended ground and air facilities at LAX.

The regional plan increases safety, reduces traffic congestion and air pollution, and creates a more-convenient air-travel system for all of Los Angeles County and our neighboring counties - Kern, Ventura and San Bernardino.

In 1988, I initiated the Traffic Signal Synchronization Program (TSSP), which has upgraded traffic signals along major routes to facilitate the movement of vehicles through the intersections on 39 routes and 780 signalized intersections along 220 miles of streets in 58 cities and unincorporated areas.

Increased traffic congestion is compounded by the growth of international trade through our ports. The Alameda Corridor East Project is a high-speed, high-capacity rail corridor connecting the Alameda Corridor and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the transcontinental rail network, creating a faster, safer and more efficient method of distributing the expected $314 billion in annual trade.

Increasing safety and convenience for Los Angeles County motorists and residents, the project includes grade separations and improvements at 64 crossings throughout the San Gabriel Valley.

Los Angeles County must continue to implement these cost-effective strategies to decrease congestion and increase the quality of life for our citizens.

However, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's 7-4 vote to support additional subway construction is a reckless about-face of the MTA's ``No More Subways'' policy that ignores the vote of the people and the catastrophic problems with the gold-plated $5 billion, 17-mile subway.

To now open Pandora's box and begin another subway project will divert limited tax dollars and focus from building an aboveground light-rail network.