NEWS ANALYSIS : Doubts Grow About Mayor's Transit Pledge : Transportation: Some say Valley support for Riordan may dissolve if voters feel abandoned on the rail line issue.

By HUGO MARTIN

Dec. 24, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

As a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles nearly three years ago, Richard Riordan tapped a key concern of San Fernando Valley residents when he campaigned to put thousands more police on the street.

Crime-weary Valley voters responded with overwhelming support of the entrepreneur-turned-politician.

Last week, Riordan struck another chord with Valley residents, but the reverberations may not be as welcome.

As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority recommended taking the long-anticipated Valley subway line off of a list of priorities for state funding, Riordan suggested that even if the line is restored, there may never be enough money to build it as planned.

For Valley residents who have long felt ignored and neglected by City Hall, the news sounded alarmingly familiar.

“Other areas get rapid transit, the Valley gets promises,” said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn.

Although Riordan insists that he is committed to building a Valley line, he flip-flopped on the project for the third time since taking office, saying that funding shortfalls may mean replacing the subway with a cheaper surface light-rail line.

“There will not be enough dollars in the 1998 state funding to pay for the east-west Valley line as currently envisioned,” he told a packed MTA meeting Wednesday.

Taken with the vote to de-prioritize the Valley line and replace it with a dozenother projects across Los Angeles, Riordan’s new position raised concerns in the Valley.

Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn., said Riordan’s suggestion to reconsider a surface line could reignite a debate that has raged on for years and that could further jeopardize the Valley line.

“I don’t think it’s right,” he said.

As planned, the $2.2-billion Valley subway would connect with the Metro Rail subway in North Hollywood and end in Woodland Hills, running mostly underground and parallel to Burbank and Chandler boulevards. The design and route were the result of at least 15 years of debate that at times sharply split Valley residents.

A surface light-rail line and a monorail along the median of the Hollywood Freeway were among the proposals considered until the MTA voted in October 1994 to back the subway alternative along the Burbank-Chandler route.

When Riordan campaigned for office, he endorsed the monorail, citing the lower cost. But at the MTA vote last year, he switched his position, supporting the subway instead because of new cost-saving ideas and strong support among Valley residents and lawmakers. Now he has said that a light-rail line or other less-expensive alternatives must be considered.

The MTA action Wednesday was taken because the project is so expensive and the agency does not have its share of funding to begin construction until 2003.

Riordan blamed the MTA staff and outgoing Executive Director Franklin White for the line’s troubles, claiming that they have failed to make sure the project stays on schedule. He said he was caught by surprise by the latest problems because MTA staff did not keep him informed.

But Riordan rejected criticism by some fellow MTA members, who say privately that Riordan, who sits on the 13-member MTA board and appoints three of those members, should be responsible for making sure the project is funded and on track.

“It’s ridiculous for me to spend 150% of my time on transportation issues,” Riordan said in an interview Tuesday, before the MTA vote.

Although Riordan insists that the Valley line still has a good chance of being built on schedule if it is restored to the 1998 state funding list, other MTA members such as Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky fear there may be neither the money nor the commitment to the Valley line in two years.

“It’s not a lost cause, but it’s a much steeper mountain to climb,” Yaroslavsky said.

For many Valley business and community leaders, Riordan’s reputation could hang in the balance.

“There is only one person to blame or praise for rapid-transit improvements in the Valley, and that is Richard Riordan,” Close said.

Because of the support Riordan enjoyed in his 1993 campaign, Valley voters expect to get special attention from the mayor, said Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a senior associate at the Center for Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate School.

“What you have is a constituency looking for a reward for their support and, at this point, the message is they are going to be deferred and that can be disappointing,” she said.

Riordan’s strong support could easily deteriorate if Valley voters believe he has abandoned them, said Paul Clarke, a Northridge-based corporate political consultant who has followed Valley politics for years.

“It’s one of those things where you can spend 1,000 years raising goodwill and lose it in one minute,” he said.

Clarke added that the rail line itself may not be as crucial to Valley residents as much as the assurance that the Valley is getting its fair share of the region’s multibillion-dollar transit system.

“The rail line means very little to most people and it means a lot of a few people,” he said. “But I think there is a symbolism that goes far beyond the transportation system itself.”

Yaroslavsky said he believes that Valley residents are watching Riordan closely to gauge his loyalty.

“I do believe this has raised a lot of eyebrows and hackles among San Fernando Valley voters,” he said.

Some Valley business leaders are not ready to blame Riordan entirely for the troubles of the Valley line, but say they will watch developments closely.

“Some business people may take it out on Riordan. Some may be upset but some may not,” said Carrie Konjoyan, vice president of the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce. “It depends on how this plays out.”

Marsha Mednick, chair of the transportation committee for the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn, agreed. “This should emphasize in the Valley that people are going to have to follow this real closely,” she said.