Riordan Opposes Valley Subway : Transit: Mayor says budget restraints prompted him to withdraw his support for the $2.2-billion plan. He revives his previous backing of a surface light-rail line.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan said Tuesday that a proposed $2.2-billion subway line across the San Fernando Valley is too expensive and should be replaced by a cheaper alternative, such as a surface light-rail line.

Riordan, who had previously supported the subway, said he will ask transit officials to consider alternatives in an effort to keep a mass-transit option alive for the Valley.

“I don’t think we will ever build a subway beyond North Hollywood,” Riordan said, adding that budget constraints had caused him to reevaluate the transit plan.

The mayor’s about-face on the subway, for years sought as one of the Valley’s largest capital improvement projects and the long-term solution to traffic gridlock, came in an interview with The Times.

Riordan unveiled his proposal one day before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is expected to recommend dropping the Valley subway from a list of priority projects for state funding, in part because of its high cost.

The mayor’s proposal quickly reignited concerns among Valley residents along the route, who fear a surface rail line will create noise and traffic congestion at crossings.

“Can you imagine what Sepulveda and Laurel Canyon boulevards are going to be like with an arm coming down, stopping traffic every few minutes?” asked Adriana Noonan, vice president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn.

In addition, the proposal also faces legal hurdles.

A law, proposed in 1991 by former state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana), requires that any mass-transit rail line through residential neighborhoods in North Hollywood and Van Nuys be built underground to reduce noise and traffic impacts.

Since then, MTA officials have scuttled all plans for a surface line along the proposed route that parallels Burbank and Chandler boulevards from North Hollywood to Woodland Hills.

Riordan representatives said they haven’t considered the impact of law on the proposal.

David Mieger, an MTA project manager for the Valley line, said Riordan’s plan is viable if the light-rail line is built just below grade through the residential neighborhoods using a grading technique called “cut and cover.”

The “cut and cover” option is much cheaper than traditional subway boring techniques because workers can build the rail line along a huge ditch that can be covered with a reinforced cement ceiling and soil.

Such an alternative alone can cut $30 million to $40 million from the project, Mieger said.

But such options may not mollify Valley residents living near the route.

“I think the community will not support it,” said Tom Herman, a Valley Village resident who lives half a block from the proposed route.

Herman said that if the MTA is willing to spend billions on subways in downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood, why not the Valley?

“When it comes to the Valley, we are like the cousin,” he said.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, an MTA member who has supported the subway alternative, noted that the environmental studies that are planned before the construction of the Valley line begins will consider the benefits and drawbacks to various options, including a surface rail system.

But he said Riordan should not dismiss the subway alternative without seeing the studies and listening to the concerns of Valley residents.

“Without the public input that such a decision necessarily demands, it would be a mistake from the MTA’s point of view and from Riordan’s point of view,” he said.

A hot debate is expected at the MTA meeting today when supporters of the Valley line fight to keep the project on the state’s priority funding list. But supporters fear they may lose that battle to backers of other projects vying for the same money.

Supporters of the Valley project, including Councilman Hal Bernson and Yaroslavsky, worry that once it is off the state list, other projects will move ahead to knock the Valley line further behind schedule. They also worry that the state will have less money in the future to spend on transportation.

But Riordan--who controls four votes on the 13-member MTA board--said he will propose the light-rail alternative that he believes will keep the mass-transit project on schedule and reduce its costs, thus improving the chances of winning state and federal funding.

The mayor said he will ask today that the MTA set aside $51 million in 1996 to begin design studies on the rail line to allow construction to begin as scheduled in 2003.

In addition to asking MTA officials to study at-grade alternatives for the Valley line, Riordan said he will propose rewriting the construction schedule to break the project up into several phases, thus reducing the cost of each phase.

“It’s our belief that the project can be funded if it’s reapproached,” he said.

In the interview, Riordan acknowledged that his proposal to reconsider a light-rail surface line may reignite the debate in the Valley and cause further delays.

“Whatever we do, there will be delays,” he said.

Recent subway tunneling mishaps, including a huge sinkhole in Hollywood, may bolster the argument that above-ground lines are better, Riordan said.

Plans for a Valley mass-transit line have been in the works for nearly 20 years. But design studies were delayed in 1990 when MTA officials began studying an alternative to the subway line: a monorail along the median of the U.S. 101, from Universal City to Woodland Hills.

For years, the debate has centered on whether the east-west line should be above or below ground.

In a nonbinding advisory vote in June 1990, 48% of San Fernando Valley voters chose an across-the-Valley monorail system along the 101; 21% favored a light-rail system in a shallow trench across the Valley from North Hollywood to Canoga Park. Only 10% voted for a subway system, which on the ballot was limited to the East Valley, from North Hollywood to Van Nuys.

During his mayoral campaign, Riordan supported the monorail option, contending that it would be the most cost-effective. But the day before the MTA board took its final vote in October 1994, he reversed himself, announcing support for the subway. He said he switched because of cost savings that MTA planners said they could make on the subway, because of City Council and city transportation department support of the subway, and because of extensive support for the subway from Valley homeowners.

Under the MTA’s 20-year plan, construction of the Valley line was to have begun in 2003, with the completion expected in 2010.

Some MTA members said Tuesday that they would consider reevaluating the subway plan if it means saving money and assuring that the project would be put back on schedule.

“If we could do that, that would be the logical and economical way of doing things,” said Jim Cragin, a Gardena councilman and MTA member who sits on the planning committee.

Cragin said subway lines make sense in densely populated areas like downtown Los Angeles but not in suburban residential neighborhoods.

Other MTA members said Riordan’s proposal to eliminate subway drilling in the Valley breathes new life into the monorail concept.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich, an MTA member who strongly backed the monorail, believes that alternative still has hope, said Rosa Fuquay, the supervisor’s transportation deputy.

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