Rep. Tony Cardenas exited the bus that traced the route of a rail line planned for Northeast San Fernando Valley on Monday, June 26, and walked over to a strip mall on Van Nuys Boulevard in Van Nuys.
He pointed to a map showing the future stops of the East San Fernando Valley Light-Rail project, his finger aimed at Pacoima. “That is where I was born,” said the Democratic congressman to officials joining him on the tour, which included many officials from the project sponsor LA Metro including CEO Stephanie Wiggins, and members of local neighborhood councils and the media.
When told the line would cost $3.7 billion to build and take at least 10 years to complete, he glanced at the thoroughfare packed with cars and the sidewalks jammed with people walking or getting on and off the local bus that barely moved in snarled traffic.
“This is a neighborhood of hard-working people,” Cardenas said, with many emigrants from Mexico, the Philippines, Central America and Russia. “A lot don’t have cars. So what do they do? They take public transit. So we need to give them a dignified way to get to and from work and to take their children to school.”
Indeed, one of the most expensive and ambitious transit railways is Metro’s 9.2-mile light-rail project, which would extend north from Van Nuys Boulevard and the G Line (Orange) station to the Sylmar/San Fernando Metrolink Station, and would add 14 light-rail stations. The first phase would stretch 6.7 miles down the middle of busy Van Nuys Boulevard to San Fernando Road, while a second phase would travel 2.5 miles alongside the Metrolink heavy rail line into San Fernando.
The project would be the first light-rail line in the San Fernando Valley since the Pacific Electric Red Car stopped operating in 1952. Cardenas, along with U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-CA, also from Pacoima, have worked together to provide more than $1.5 billion in federal dollars for the project, and Cardenas said more is on its…
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