Valley Interview : MTA Leader Weighs Rail Line Options as Decision Time Nears

Mel Wilson, a Northridge realtor who has lived in the San Fernando Valley for more than three decades, has for the past year served on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board of directors as an appointee of Mayor Richard Riordan.

Wilson, 41, is vice chairman of the agency’s planning and programming committee, which last week was briefed on a new cost comparison of rival plans for an east-west rail line across the Valley floor. The study found that a subway could be built for $19 million more than the cost of an elevated railway along the Ventura Freeway median--a far narrower difference than once projected.

The MTA board is scheduled to decide on a route next month after years of debate and position reversals.

Wilson spoke with Times staff writer Henry Chu about the proposed rail line, its history and its future.

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Question: How long has the debate raged over the east-west Valley rail line? Why the holdup in getting it started?

Answer: The debate has been going on for almost 10 years. Principally it’s two different groups of people: One group has been supportive of the Ventura Freeway alignment, and another has been supportive of what we call the Southern Pacific Burbank branch line, which goes down Chandler and Victory boulevards.

That debate was really hot and heavy about six years ago. At that time, some local government officials agreed to support the Burbank branch line.

But there were other elected officials who represented parts of the Valley who were not completely sold on the Burbank branch.

That was mainly Mike Antonovich. Antonovich really felt strongly that the freeway would be the best way to go. His main issue was cost. The freeway alignment was almost half a billion dollars cheaper. The other part is that he wanted a high-tech, modern-looking system, and in his mind a monorail system fit the bill.

So he put together a ballot initiative that asked for a vote from people in the Valley. There were about four different choices that they had. One choice was a monorail that would take you across the Valley, another a subway would take you to the Sepulveda Basin.

The biggest group of people, 48%, said they supported the freeway monorail taking them all the way across the Valley. Antonovich felt that was a clear reading that folks supported the monorail.

Q: What is your own position?

A: I’ve remained neutral. My goal since I got on the MTA board is to do my very best to bring the Valley together. There were already two very powerful people supporting either option, and I felt it wouldn’t do me or the Valley any good to get in that battle. . . .

Probably within the next three weeks or so I will take a stand on which alignment I support, but I haven’t gotten to that point yet.

Q: How does one argue with the fact that more voters chose the monorail in 1990 than the subway?

A: That’s what Antonovich has been saying all along.

But the other side of the argument is that the vote was put in such a way that you had a choice of a monorail that took you across the Valley or a subway or another type of system that would only take you halfway. And most people would want to go all the away across if they had a choice.

Q: What are the primary advantage and disadvantage of the Ventura Freeway alignment?

A: The advantage of the Ventura Freeway alignment would be that it would be instant and cheap marketing to have a system that goes right down one of the busiest freeways in our region. You’d see people traveling along at a fairly even, smooth clip down the middle of the freeway while you’re stuck in traffic in a car. That’s a pretty strong argument to get people to change their behavior from that of a single-occupant vehicle to some kind of a public transit system.

The disadvantage would be that there are a lot of folks who would be negatively impacted with the freeway alignment, principally homeowners.

The freeway alignment would require a widening of the freeway of about 35 feet, 17 feet on each side. . . . It would basically eliminate the greenbelt--the trees and the foliage that go alongside the freeway now. That would be replaced by some sort of sound wall. It wouldn’t look that pretty, especially given how people are putting graffiti and tagging stuff all over the place.

Q: What are the primary advantage and disadvantage of the subway alignment?

A: It seems to have the support of the majority of the folks who live along that corridor. There are some exceptions, but of the folks who live along there, the homeowner groups and the elected officials, most of them say they want that. That would be the best argument for it politically speaking, and this is going to be a very political issue. You need the support of those folks who are elected in those corridors to get an alignment to be financed. It’s going to take a lot of money.

Also, it connects to a couple of junior colleges and the civic center in Van Nuys.

The disadvantage is that there are uncertainties when you do tunneling, as we found out in the work that’s been done on the Metro Red Line. We’re not sure completely what’s under the ground. Although they do core samplings, it just doesn’t always reveal everything that’s down there.

So if you do a deep bore, you’re certainly going to have some problems that would probably occur that we haven’t foreseen. If you do an open trench, you’re going to get a lot of the homeowners who are going to be mad that you are putting in an open trench on part of the system and a subway in other parts. There’s going to be an issue of: “Are they better than we are?” and “Why should they get more protection than we?”

Q: The most recent cost analyses have narrowed the gap between the two alignments to about $19 million more for a subway, compared to a $440-million difference earlier. But in these recessionary times, isn’t $19 million a significant amount?

A: It’s a lot of money, and I don’t want to minimize that, but it’s not a lot when you look at the overall scope of the work and the number of years the system is designed to be used for. You’re talking a minimum of 50 years, maybe 75 years. If you amortize that over that period of time, it’s peanuts.

Q: What does it mean when officials speak of “federalizing” the project?

A: The majority of the rail projects that we’ve constructed, with the exception of the Blue Line, have been paid for as much as 50% by the federal government and 50% by state and local governments.

In order for a Valley project to work, we need to get a similar type of financing mechanism: 50% minimum from the feds and revenues from state and local government. And I believe we need to look at the private sector, too, to get some of the money to make it work.

My sense is that the system will be financed in segments, similar to what we are doing with most of the other major rail projects. The first segment would go to the 405 Freeway. Then, if the voters feel that it’s a system that’s warranted and they’re willing to pay for it, then perhaps we can figure out a way to finance from the 405 westward.

It’s unrealistic to believe that we’re going to be able to pay for the whole thing with one funding package.

Q: Some have suggested that another vote be taken over the alignment. Would you support that?

A: No. That would not serve us timewise.

We’re looking at competing interests who want those dollars and who want to get bumped up in the long-range planning process. If we wait for a vote, what that really says is that we want to delay a decision for the Valley, and any delay for the Valley means that other competing projects will have additional time to build up their support base.

Q: The timetable calls for the rail line to be built by the year 2018. Is that feasible?

A: I think so, but we’ll have to be creative. It won’t happen if the MTA continues to do business as usual. We as a board will have to make some significant changes in the way that we do business. There are things that could be changed to get more efficiencies and cost savings in all the projects that we’re building.

We need to make some major changes in the way we contract out, in the way we manage our real estate. We have substantial real estate holdings countywide, and I’m not sure we even know what we own.

But I’m optimistic. I’m working hard to get the Valley line to be the next project after the Pasadena Blue Line extension.