Movement Along Orange Line: Businesses Displaced

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority completed this month terminating the leases of businesses located on the right-of-way of the extension of the Orange Line busway through Canoga Park and Chatsworth. Along the property on the east side of Canoga Avenue stand empty buildings and lots, some with signs redirecting customers to the new locations. The process, however, has not been an easy one for some business owners. JMS Wood Products had to leave its building on April 30 but cannot move in to its new building on Topanga Canyon Boulevard until June 1. So for the month of May, the company put its equipment into storage. “It’s going to cost a couple of thousand dollars,” said co-owner Vic Maybalian. “It is not huge but it is an inconvenience.” Scott Cohen found it more than an inconvenience to move his landscape design business The Green Scene from the corner of Canoga and Vanowen Street where he had been for 14 years. Cohen made $100,000 in improvements to the building and the grounds, a showcase for the landscaping work he does for private residences. Now it will all be torn up for the busway. While Cohen said he liked the idea of the improvements Metro is making, the transit agency could have done better in its dealings with the business owners. “They simply needed to reimburse the companies that are displaced for this,” Cohen said. Metro relocated 82 leaseholders off its property, a former railroad right-of-way. Four businesses are staying, three of which were reconfigured to provide the needed room for the busway, said Hitesh Patel, deputy executive officer, project management. The type of lease the business had determined whether they received assistance in moving to a new location, Patel said. The four-mile extension will allow for Orange Line buses to travel between Canoga Park and the Metrolink station in Chatsworth. There would be four new stations built at Sherman Way, Roscoe Boulevard, Nordhoff Street and the Metrolink station. A new parking lot at the train station was completed in October. The extension is scheduled to be open in the summer of 2012. With the business off the right-of-way, the next step is designing the busway, asbestos abatement and demolition of any structures, and foundation work on a bridge near Lassen Street and the Metrolink, Patel said. Metro constructed a privacy fence for a mobile park that is near where the bridge will cross over the railroad tracks. “We committed to doing that as the first order before the bridge,” Patel said. The first order for Maybalian once June 1 comes is to move his equipment to his new building. He expects it will take until the second week of June to be in full operation. His experience with Metro was more positive than that of Cohen’s. The agency had reduced his rent, for one thing, and the communication was good. Metro did everything it could to have JMS stay beyond the April 30 deadline to move, Maybalian said. What Maybalian still faces in getting customers back in his door Cohen has already been through after finishing his relocation in Northridge in March. Still, between the poor economy and the spring rains it was tough reaching out to the customer base he had spent years building up. Things are now looking up, as pent up demand for his landscaping and other services has brought in new work. The Northridge location does give more office space and storage space for vehicles and supplies than what was in Canoga Park but it came at a price. “It took months of searching for property when I should have been focused on clients and doing design work,” Cohen said. “Instead I was searching for property that would suit our business.” City Transit Cuts The Los Angeles Department of Transportation will eliminate its DASH service in Warner Center, reduce service in other areas of the San Fernando Valley, and get rid of two Commuter Express routes serving the Valley as a way to reduce its budget. These changes and other service cuts and adjustments throughout the city plus a fare increase to 35 cents start on Aug. 1. The Warner Center DASH had the lowest ridership of all the bus lines the city offered, with an average of 4.8 riders per hour. The average, according to the Transportation Department, was 45.5 riders per hour. Cutting the two Warner Center lines, which served an area bounded by Vanowen to the north, Owensmouth to the west, DeSoto to the east and Burbank Boulevard to the south, will save the city $754,000 a year. The Warner Center Transportation Management Organization tried to get the city to make changes to the DASH routes to increase ridership but the request didn’t go anywhere, said its director, Christopher Park. When the Orange Line opened in 2005 with the western terminus on Owensmouth, it was hoped that riders would then take DASH buses to get to their jobs. What ended up happening was that people decided to walk instead, Park said. “It was limited vehicles that provided the service and many people do not want to stand and wait, so that hurt it as well,” Park said. Once the economy begins to improve and development in Warner Center picks up, Park foresees some kind of bus service returning. The city doesn’t count it out either having approved back in March a $180,000 grant application to study the feasibility for a transit circulator or light rail system. The city would need to identify where the new service would go, when it would run and they type of vehicle used, Park said. One suggestion has been for a trolley. “There have been creative ideas neighborhood groups have tossed out,” Park said. While the loss of the DASH service was disappointing to Park he was glad the city saw the value in keeping a commuter express bus line going to Thousand Oaks, and changing the terminus of one line to the Thousand Oaks Mall. The two lines will have morning and afternoon trips eliminated, however. Starting in July, the commuter express service between Warner Center and Simi Valley will be discontinued, as will the line serving Van Nuys, Burbank, and North Hollywood. The line services Chatsworth cuts trips west of the Metrolink station. Staff Reporter Mark Madler can be reached at (818) 316-3126 or by e-mail at [email protected]. He will be using public transportation when visiting Chicago in May.