During Monday’s San Fernando City Council meeting the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) delivered a presentation on the plans for the northern section of the San Fernando Valley Light Rail Transit (ESFV LRT) Project.
“I want to encourage the residents and the businesses here in San Fernando to follow this project. Because if it takes place, if it’s a project that’s approved to go through our city, it is going to impact us,” said Vice Mayor Mary Mendoza.
The ESFV LRT is broken into two segments: the southern segment, a 6.7-mile track from Van Nuys to Pacoima already entering the construction phase; and the northern segment, a 2.5-mile stretch from Pacoima to Sylmar, that is proposed to run alongside the Metrolink tracks through the City of San Fernando.
In addition to the proposed light rail, Metrolink has plans to lay a second set of tracks through this passage.
There are six-grade crossing points in the proposed northern section, where both the Metrolink and the light rail trains intersect with city streets – Van Nuys Boulevard, Paxton Street, Jessie Street/Wolfskill Street, Brand Boulevard, Maclay Avenue and Hubbard Street.
“We’ve lost lives multiple times over the years because there are no safety rails for the crossings,” said Mayor Celeste Rodriguez.
City Manager Nick Kimball added that there were traffic concerns regarding how often the guard gates would be down, “blocking traffic and sort of cutting the city in half.”
There has also been discussion about implementing different grade separations for the light rail, meaning underground or elevated tracks, to alleviate some of these problems.
“In other communities, they are offered more options,” said Rodriguez. “In wealthier communities that can sue, there is a grade separation … because of the negative impacts on communities. Our community doesn’t deserve any less than anyone else.”
Metro Board certified the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the ESFV LRT project in December 2020 but initiated a further study of the northern segment because of the concerns raised by the City of San Fernando.
David Meiger, senior executive officer for Metro, presented three suggestions for how to proceed: forgo building the northern segment; continue with the full build of the northern section as initially planned; or forgo building the northern segment with the addition of a Metrolink transit station to connect the southern segment of the light rail with Metrolink.
“We want to make sure that our community has access to Metro, but, as well, has access to providing their opinion and what they would like to come to this city,” said Councilmember Mary Solorio.
Meiger said that once Metro completes its technical work this summer, they will reconvene with the city to discuss the alternatives and the best way to proceed.
“Before we take anything to our metro board of directors, we want to meet with folks in the city of LA side and City of San Fernando,” said Meiger. “And then ultimately, if one of these projects goes forward, we would go back into the environmental process and have public hearings, public meetings, outreach meetings. Nothing would happen until we went through that process.”
“Please, impart that we want engagement now,” said Rodriguez. “And we don’t want anything that any other community wouldn’t be offered.”
Please do not cut the city I love in half. It would seem that one crossing in the city should be elevated or go underground for safety .