Burbank Drafts Monorail Route Through City

While noisy debate has raged for the past several years over a plan to build a 16-mile elevated rail line across the San Fernando Valley, the city of Burbank has, with little fanfare or discord, studied its own monorail plans.

Those studies, now only three months from completion, focus on a $225-million line that would begin in Universal City, connect with the Metro Red Line subway, stretch 6.5 miles along raised tracks over Olive Avenue, circle the Media District and end at the Metrolink station on Front Street.

As envisioned, the line would connect major employment centers, offering workers easy access to alternate mass-transit lines, dramatically cutting commuter trips on Burbank streets.

Unlike the larger, faster elevated line proposed to run along the median of the Ventura Freeway, Burbank’s monorail would operate more like a shuttle bus with a circular route and stops every few blocks. It would carry about 33,000 riders per day.

But don’t expect to see this line built anytime soon.

Although Burbank’s monorail project has received favorable reviews from city officials and business leaders it ranks second in priority to a more expensive light-rail line connecting Burbank Airport, Glendale and downtown Los Angeles.

Burbank Mayor George Battey said the $445-million light-rail line has higher priority because the tracks already exist, the line provides access to the airport and, more important, it has a greater chance of getting public funding.

“For the near future, say the next seven to 10 years, we feel the light-rail line has much greater potential for receiving funding,” he said. Officials in Glendale and at Burbank Airport have promised to share the cost of the light-rail line.

The 11.9-mile light-rail line is one of eight rail projects competing for funding priority under the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s 30-year transportation plan. If approved, the light-rail line could be built before the end of the century.

Nonetheless, Battey said the study of a Burbank monorail will not go to waste. If funding became available sometime in the future, he said, the monorail plans can be pulled from the shelf and reconsidered. It can also be modified to extend to Sylmar and Pacoima, Battey said.

But for now, he said “the monorail project will be on the back burner for awhile.”

The city of Burbank and Los Angeles County are splitting the $500,000 cost of the monorail study headed by Gensler and Associates, a Santa Monica architectural firm.

J.F. Finn, a Gensler architect and project manager for the monorail study, said the line has many advantages, including its relative lack of negative environmental effects and a high potential for getting private businesses to participate in station construction.

“If you have the funding for it, it’s a very workable project,” he said.

As planned, the line would run about 18 to 20 feet above ground, he said. The entire project could be built in four to five years, Finn said.

Among many potential funding options for the line is a joint development plan with private firms who would share the cost of the project but would also profit from businesses created at the stations, Finn said. Another option is to impose fees on developers to help pay for the project.

The line would also help employers meet clean-air mandates by offering a mass-transit line that employees can take to work instead of driving, Finn said.

Preliminary studies say the line would attract 33,000 to 36,000 riders per day, he said. Although it is described as a monorail, Finn said any of three types of rail cars could be used, some of them not monorail designs. The proposed line above the Ventura Freeway is also commonly described as a “monorail,” although no decision has been made on the precise type of cars to be used.

Already several Burbank and Universal City firms have shown interest in the proposed line, but none have committed money to help build it, Finn said.

James Hescox, transportation chairman of the Universal City-North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, said business owners support the idea in concept because it would help them meet Regulation 15, a clean-air mandate by the South Coast Air Quality Management District that requires large employers to persuade workers to car pool or use mass transit.

“All businesses and employers are facing pressure from Reg. 15 to get people out of cars, and to achieve that we need effective mass transit,” said Hescox, vice president at MCA Inc., which owns Universal City.

But he said business owners cannot endorse the line until they hear more details about how it will be financed and how it will connect with other mass-transit systems.

“Conceptually, I think everybody supports getting all the mass transit integrated,” he said. “But I haven’t seen that.”

Burbank Monorail

An architectural firm hired by Burbank is studying a 6.5-mile monorail line that would connect with the Metro Red Line subway in Universal City, extend along Olive Avenue, circle the Media District and end at the Metrolink station on Front Street.