Busway 2001 TimelineA long-awaited environmental impact report, released in May, recommends that the proposed east-west rapid busway should be built along the former Southern Pacific railroad right-of-way along Burbank and Chandler boulevards. But Orthodox Jewish residents who scuttled plans for a subway along the Burbank-Chandler alignment on religious grounds now object to the disruptive effects on the community from the busway and are calling for an alternate route along Lankershim Boulevard and Oxnard Street.
The Lankershim-Oxnard alternative would cost $245 million and buses would average 24.4 miles-per-hour and take 34.3 minutes to cross the Valley. The Chandler-Burbank route would cost $285 million and buses would average 29 mph and take 28.8 minutes to get across.
"Like any project, you can't please everybody, but it's vital we get this done because millions of people depend on it," said David W. Fleming, chairman of the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley and co-chairman of the Valley Transportation Strike Force, an organization dedicated to making sure the area gets its fair share of transportation projects. "The key is to build it in such a way that it's environmentally and aesthetically pleasing to everybody. We'll do our best to assuage any fears regardless of where the line goes."
Under the Oxnard plan, Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses would use the former railroad right-of-way only west of Woodman Avenue. The transit line would stretch from the North Hollywood subway station to Warner Center in Woodland Hills. The MTA board will have to choose a final alignment. In advance of the MTA's July decision, homeowner groups and other interests along Oxnard Street are organizing to support the EIR's preferred route.
"We are concerned about having it on Oxnard because of the high amount of traffic congestion here," said North Hollywood resident Diann Corral, president of the Laurel Plaza Neighborhood Association. She has gathered the first 600 of what association members expect to be several thousand signatures opposed to the Lankershim-Oxnard alternative. "There are three schools here. Any time in the morning here, it's bumper-to-bumper traffic."
Emmanuel Lutheran Church Pastor James Schoenrock said the rapid busway would pose a safety hazard to the 600 children who attend the church school.
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| Emmanuel Lutheran Church Pastor James Schoenrock (Hans Gutknecht / Daily News) |
Under the proposed Burbank-Chandler route, at least six homes, about two dozen businesses and a religious center would be acquired through eminent domain. The neighborhood along the North Hollywood and Valley Village section of the 14-mile, bus-only route has a high population of Orthodox Jews, who are forbidden to drive on about 122 days -- Saturdays and holidays -- each year, and often cross the unused train tracks on foot. The large pedestrian population is concerned about the safety of crossing the busway.
Members of the Concerned Citizens Transit Coalition argue that the Oxnard alternative will only add 464 bus trips to the 21,000 vehicles that drive on Oxnard Street each day. They also say it will result in a daily ridership level only 1,300 fewer than the 24,700 daily passengers expected with the Chandler alternative.
Shaarey Zedek Rabbi Aron Tendler, whose 700 members constitute the second-largest Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Los Angeles, said he is concerned the Chandler busway would split a community that has thousands of people who must walk across the busy street much of the year. "There is a great fear for our safety," Tendler said. "There is also the issue of pollution, noise, and the fact remains it's an area where they won't even stop the bus because there are no riders here. It just doesn't seem to make much sense."
Fleming said a controversy involving the proposed rail line through Chandler several years ago involved a different situation. "The rail project was much more invasive," he said. "We are talking about a busway through a major thoroughfare. That's where buses go -- on streets. All we're doing is providing a special kind of bus to go on that street. That's a lot different than building railroad tracks."
Burbank-Chandler community leaders argue that the savings from going down Oxnard could be used for improvements. "With the $40 million (saved), they could pave Oxnard with gold and not split a community and jeopardize the welfare of a lot of kids and old folks," coalition member Fritz Friedman said.
But Kevin Michel, MTA transportation planning manager, said the MTA doesn't have an exclusive right-of-way to the Lankershim-Oxnard alternative. "We would run on the street with mixed-flow traffic," he said. "As traffic gets worse over time, we are just one more vehicle competing for space on the road."
From a technical transportation and planning standpoint, the Burbank-Chandler alternative appears better because it will have a faster running time, attract more riders and has the benefit of being its own right-of-way, he said. But the Lankershim-Oxnard option is less expensive and the $40 million left over would be used to improve sidewalks, add street trees, improve intersections, add a turning lane to the intersection of Lankershim and Oxnard and improve access to the Hollywood Freeway, he said. "They are both viable, competitive and sound alternatives that will help make this east-west connection in the Valley," he said.
Climaxing years of debate and controversy, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board voted 8-3 Thursday to use the Chandler Boulevard right of way and go ahead with the $285 million east-west rapid busway 14 miles across the San Fernando Valley.
In his first appearance on the 13-member board along with his three appointees, Mayor James Hahn failed in his attempt to block approval of the Chandler route by proposing to put the busway along the Oxnard Street and Lankershim Boulevard alternative in North Hollywood. His motion was defeated, 8-4. That route would have bypassed the Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods along Chandler where residents have long opposed light rail or busway projects. The MTA board's rebuff of Hahn represented a triumph for county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who has championed the busway plan and hopes to see construction start in 2003 and buses running in 2005.
"It's a huge day for the Valley," said Richard Katz, co-chairman of a Valley Industry and Commerce Association transportation committee. "After two decades of getting passed over, bypassed and having money taken from us, there is a decision to start fixing transportation in the Valley."
Faced with the numbers against him, Hahn backed away from his plan to try to scuttle the whole busway project as a waste of money, and he only moved to route it along Oxnard. After that failed, one of his own appointees, Councilman Hal Bernson, backed the Chandler route, and another, Paul Hudson, abstained. His strategy backfired both with busway opponents along Chandler -- he gave his campaign pledge to protect their neighborhood -- and opponents along Oxnard who resented his effort to put the busway through their neighborhood. As the meeting ended, shouts in the packed room included, "You just lost the Valley, Mr. Hahn!" and "betrayal" and "secession fever."
A key moment in the hearing came when Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, told the board before the vote that the $145 million in state funding toward the east-west busway and $100 million toward a north-south Valley busway could not be used for any other purpose. "The money is available. It will not available again. It is use it or lose it," Hertzberg said.
Groups that represent people who live along the busway route -- the Concerned Citizens Transit Coalition and Citizens Organized for Smart Transit -- said they plan to sue the MTA and will seek a temporary injunction to stop the project on the grounds that the environmental impact report is defective and thus illegal.
Yaroslavsky, who introduced the successful motion to begin the planning, engineering and environmental studies on the project, said groups have sued the MTA before. "We've lived to tell about it," he said. "We were sued on the (subway) tunnel under the Hollywood Hills, and people predicted doom and gloom -- the subway would cause the mountain to collapse and drought to occur and every malady you could imagine -- and it's been a perfect project from everyone's point of view."
Yaroslavsky predicted that 25,000 people a day will ride the bus, which is expected to whisk riders from Warner Center to the North Hollywood subway station in 30 minutes. "Most will be new bus riders and, hopefully, commuters who will get out of their cars and into the buses," Yaroslavsky said. "To go from downtown to Warner Center can take an hour and a half to two hours today. Under this bus system, you'll be able to do it in less than an hour -- 22 minutes on the subway and another 30 minutes on the busway."
Hahn said he asked Hertzberg on Thursday morning whether the money appropriated by the state for the project could be used for expanding bus service in the Valley. But Hahn said there clearly was no support on the MTA board for that option, which was recently proposed by a number of citizens groups across the Valley, and he was told by Hertzberg that the money was earmarked only for the busway. "I think some people are going to be happy, and some people are going to be angry," Hahn said. "I'm disappointed because I thought there was a better way to (do) this that would save money and provide more bus service to more people."
At the meeting, Hertzberg said AB 2928, signed by Gov. Gray Davis to provide almost $900 million for county transit projects, including $245 million for Valley busway projects, specifies that the funds must be used within two years.
Outside the board hearing room, Sherman Oaks resident Steve Fairly, who was accompanied by his two teary-eyed daughters, said Hahn promised his community to oppose the Chandler route, but his motion to put the busway on Oxnard was a political sidestep. "I think it's an abomination," Fairly said. "I think Hahn sold out. Hahn ran on promises to the Valley to oppose the busway, and he sidetracked around what he said."
Another Chandler area resident, Steve Mazlin, said Hahn took the politically correct way out and defended an unpopular motion he knew wouldn't pass. "In other words, he held us out to dry," Mazlin said. "We're going to court."
Amnon Charash, a member of the steering committee of the Concerned Citizens Transit Coalition, said the community is resolved to work together to continue efforts through litigation. Charash called the environmental report illegal. "It is fatally defective from a legal point of view."
Rabbi Aron B. Tendler of the Temple Shaarey Zedek on Chandler Boulevard said the vote is a real tragedy. "I'm disappointed," he said. "I believe they are making a mistake. There is an alternative that can enhance service at a low cost, TSM (transportation system management). Let them study it. If it doesn't work, then go to the busway. Our concern is the same it always has been. Obviously, crossing Chandler is going to be more difficult."
Jill Haber of West Valley Concerned Citizens said there were no studies of the other options. "I'm very disappointed and upset that Mayor Hahn sold us out," she said. "Everybody did. The newspaper said, 'Hahn: Kill the busway.' He didn't kill the busway. He just moved it to another street."
Given the MTA board's decision, the agency staff will begin preliminary engineering studies and bring the final environmental impact report before the board in four to six months. Under the project, the MTA would condemn a church, 12 businesses, a house and five bungalow apartments, but project manager Kevin Michel said MTA officials believe they can save the Chabad of North Hollywood, located at 13079 Chandler Blvd.
MTA spokesman Marc Littman said the staff will work to address the concerns of the Chandler community by including crosswalks with automatic timers, pedestrian bridges and soundwalls to reduce the inconvenience.
A day after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted to use the Chandler Boulevard right-of-way for a $285 million east-west rapid busway project, MTA officials said Friday they need to remove 119 dead and dying eucalyptus trees along the route.
"Based on the advice from two professional arborists, MTA will remove the trees to protect passing motorists and pedestrians from limbs and pieces of bark that could fall from trees weakened by the infestation," MTA spokesman Ed Scannell said. The culprit is an Australian insect, called the redgum lerp psyllid, which has been blamed for the deaths of thousands of eucalyptus trees in California since 1991.
But Amnon Charash, a member of the streering committee of the Concerned Citizens Transit Coalition -- a group opposed to the busway on the grounds that it poses a safety hazard to the Orthodox Jewish community along Chandler Boulevard -- said the timing of the announcement is suspect. "If those trees are infected, how come they didn't remove them until now?" Charash asked. "All of a sudden they recognize that the trees are infected. It's too coincidental to the timing of the decision to put the busway here. The timing smells."
The $56,000 project to remove the trees will begin Aug. 6 and work will be done over three weeks, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday by Travers Tree Service of Palos Verdes Peninsula. Crews will begin the removal at Tujunga Avenue and proceed west. Various pieces of heavy equipment will be used and some lane closures on Chandler Boulevard will be necessary when the larger trees are removed, officials said. They said lane closures will occur during non-peak hours between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.
The trees, some nearly 50 years old, are located on two sections of the Burbank-Chandler right-of-way -- on the Chandler Boulevard median between Tujunga Avenue and Laurel Canyon Boulevard, and between Bellingham Avenue and Corteen Place. Scannell said the removal of the trees is not linked to the 14-mile busway project, and the agency will develop a replanting plan in conjunction with landscaping plans for the entire length of the busway. "Due to the serious safety concerns, it is not possible to delay removal of the infested trees until the landscaping plan for the busway is developed," Scannell said.
The redgum lerp psyllid uses the trees as a food source and as a nest for its eggs. It damages the leaves of the eucalyptus trees by drawing sap, which causes defoliation. It also secretes a sticky substance on the leaves, the surrounding landscape, cars and sidewalks. As eucalyptus trees die, they begin to dry out and limbs and heavy pieces of bark can fall, sometimes from considerable heights given the size of some of the older trees.
According to the MTA, experts estimate that more than 80 percent of the 119 trees targeted by the agency are dead and the rest are dying.
A single word in a decade-old state law may be the key to whether the San Fernando Valley gets an east-west rapid busway after years of debate.
Opponents of the recently approved busway along the Burbank-Chandler corridor say the mass transit project is prohibited under a 1991 state law that regulated the route's right of way. The law prohibits "any exclusive public mass transit guideway" unless it's underground. The key word is "guideway," say opponents of the MTA project. They say the dedicated bus route is a guideway, making it illegal. Proponents of the plan say it's a bus lane and some hedges, not a guideway.
The argument is more than a game of semantics.
Opponents are preparing a possible legal challenge of the entire $285 million project before construction starts in 2003. "I think it's illegal, and the state law always contemplated a more friendly transportation plan for the area," said former state Sen. David Roberti, who was Senate president pro tem when the law passed. The legislation was sponsored by former Sen. Alan Robbins and has been blamed for the Valley losing its lead position for a rail system to the Eastside and Westside and having to settle for a busway.
The bus route between the North Hollywood Metro Red Line subway station and Warner Center was approved July 26 by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors. The vote marked the end of a decades-long struggle to bring high-speed mass transit across the Valley. The busway would follow the right-of-way of the former Burbank Branch line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which was regulated by the 1991 law known as the "Robbins bill."
Robbins' bill, SB 211, allowed the county's transportation commission -- which later merged with another agency to form the MTA -- to buy the rights to the 14-mile stretch of railway. The bill contained regulations on any future use of the property, including the addition of Section 130265 to the Public Utilities Code to prohibit "any exclusive public mass transit guideway" from being built within one mile of the Tujunga Wash unless it is constructed underground -- in short, a subway.
Although other parts of the Robbins bill specifically mentioned rail projects, that section did not -- leading some officials to say it may have been intended to apply to all mass transit, including a busway. "It strikes me that before there is any construction on a high-speed bus line, the whole process is open to litigation," said Roberti, who is running in the Sept. 11 special election for Los Angeles City Council in the 4th District, which includes the eastern part of the MTA busway route in North Hollywood and Valley Village.
Last year, Gov. Gray Davis signed the $5 billion Traffic Congestion Relief Fund, which specifically named the busway among funded projects. The MTA plans to move ahead with development of the busway. "We believe we're on solid legal ground here," said MTA spokesman Marc Littman. "The governor and the Legislature did ample research before allocating $145 million for this project."
Robbins, who still lives in Southern California, said he recalls that rail projects were the focus of the hearings that led to the bill but said it is possible that the final intention was to protect the disputed area from any mass transit unless it was underground. "The only way to resolve the intention of the bill would be to look at the files, transcripts and correspondence included in the legislative hearings that led up to the compromise bill," Robbins said.
In March 2000, the state Legislative Counsel issued a legal opinion at the request of Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, as to whether the Robbins bill prohibits a busway. In their opinion, state lawyers referred to the Webster's Dictionary definition of a guideway as "a channel, slot, or track in which something is fitted so that its line of motion is controlled." According to the opinion, use of the term in past legislation has not referred to buses, and did not in this case, either. Rich Zeiger, a spokesman for Hertzberg, said the Assembly speaker was satisfied with that opinion.
But a legal opinion by the Los Angeles County Counsel in May 2000 questioned why the word "rail" was used in other parts of the Robbins bill but not in the section now in question. "It may be that the difference in language between the two subdivisions was nothing more than an oversight and that neither reference includes a dedicated busway," the County Counsel's opinion stated. "On the other hand, an argument could be made that the language difference is intentional with the purpose of including a dedicated busway." However, Steven Carnevale, the assistant county counsel who prepared the opinion, said a court would not likely find in favor of opponents because when two state statutes are in conflict, the newer law takes precedent. And, state lawmakers and the governor could end any uncertainty by approving a new measure stating their intent.
If there is a court fight over the Robbins bill, the cost of digging out the hearing files and fighting the MTA could be an expensive burden for busway opponents. "This is a major lawsuit that could cost six figures to pursue," said Gary Blasi, a UCLA law professor specializing in challenges to government agencies. "But in the end, someone in a black robe will have to decide, and sometimes even billion-dollar lawsuits can hinge on a phrase or even a comma."
Opponents are gathering in coming weeks to find out if they have the resources to challenge the MTA. "This busway is illegal," said Amnon Charash of the Concerned Citizens Transit Coalition. "The community is alarmed and outraged by (the MTA's) vote to approve this." Charash said there are also questions about the accuracy of statements in the required environmental impact report prepared by the MTA. Those questions could be part of a lawsuit if busway opponents marshal enough resources for the legal battle. "Money talks," Charash said. "But it's very hard to imagine the community would go down without swinging."
