Deukmejian Vetoes Bill on Subway Link to Metro Rail : Concept Remains Viable, Backers Say

In a move that dismayed homeowners and elected officials in the eastern San Fernando Valley, Gov. George Deukmejian on Monday vetoed legislation requiring that a proposed Metro Rail extension in the area be built underground.

The governor said he killed the bill, authored by state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana), because it “would insert the state in a matter that is and should be the jurisdiction of local authorities.”

Deukmejian said that when Los Angeles voters approved a ballot measure providing sales tax revenues for mass transit, they gave the county transportation commission authority over such questions and “the state should not become involved. . . .”

Robbins said he was saddened by the governor’s action.

“This bill becoming law would have been the most significant step that could have possibly happened for 21st-Century transportation planning for the San Fernando Valley,” he said. “It would have meant protection and security for all potential residential areas against at-grade or elevated rapid transit lines.”

Officials of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which is constructing a countywide rail network, had strongly opposed the bill, arguing that the state should not dictate the design of a locally financed project.

But commission officials said the governor’s veto does not mean the subway concept is dead. It is one of several Valley transit alternatives that will be evaluated in an environmental report now being drawn up.

Still Viable

“The idea remains, and it will be treated equally with the others,” said Richard Stanger, the commission’s rail development director.

Homeowner groups vehemently opposed an above-ground rail line through East Valley residential areas, saying it would split neighborhoods and create noise, traffic and safety problems.

Robbins had portrayed his plan, assembled with the help of Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude, as the only politically feasible way to build a Metro Rail line through the Valley. The lawmakers persuaded many local businesses, homeowner groups and elected officials to back it.

County transit planners are studying two east-west rail routes through the Valley. One would run along the Ventura Freeway’s southern shoulder from Metro Rail’s planned northern terminus in Universal City to Warner Center.

The other would run for 15 miles from North Hollywood to Warner Center along a Southern Pacific railroad right of way that follows Chandler and Victory boulevards and Oxnard and Topham streets.

Transit officials are studying both routes either as Metro Rail extensions or for light-rail trolleys. They also plan to examine putting the line underground in residential areas and above ground elsewhere on both routes.

25-Foot Depth

Robbins’ bill would have required that either line be built below ground level in a 3.6-mile corridor bordered by the Hollywood Freeway on the east and Hazeltine Avenue in Van Nuys on the west. In the middle segment--between Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Woodman Avenue--the line would have had to have been at least 25 feet underground.

Stanger said the veto would have no effect on the transportation commission’s planning process. The agency is awaiting an environmental impact report due in March.

Transit officials have said they will take widespread public support for a subway into consideration when deciding what type of line to build. But the issue of affordability also looms large for the commission, which is building the Long Beach-Los Angeles and Century Freeway light-rail lines and contributing to Metro Rail construction.

Preliminary estimates of the cost of Valley rail plans are $900 million for a 15-mile light-rail system and $2.4 billion for a 15-mile all-subway system. A partial subway of the type proposed by Robbins and Braude--which would be about seven miles long--would cost $1 billion to $1.5 billion, Stanger said.