Updated: Busway Extension Forces Relocation of Businesses

Note: The original version of this story contained two errors – that the businesses on Metro property were already given a 90-day notice to leave, and that work would start in May or June on the busway extension at the Canoga Park station. Both errors have been fixed. Businesses along the right-of-way of a proposed extension of the Orange Line busway will be given a 90-day notice to relocate now that the Metro Board approved a final environmental report that clears way for construction to begin later this year. Some 65 businesses are located along the Canoga Avenue corridor, many on month-to-month leases but the agency has not yet given notice when they would have to leave. The owners have been kept aware of Metro’s plans for the right-of-way that it purchased from a railroad in the 1990s and that it had future transportation uses, Metro officials said. The transit agency is extending the popular Orange Line busway from the Canoga Park station north to the Metrolink station in Chatsworth. Construction is expected to begin as early as June on the Chatsworth Park-and-Ride lot, with the remainder of the project to start by the end of the year. A handful of businesses, including a building supply store and two cement makers, will remain as their leases were in place before Metro bought the property. The busway, however, will reduce the amount of land those businesses use, said Walt Davis, a transportation planning manager with Metro. “They are amendable to downsizing,” Davis said. A self-storage business north of Saticoy Avenue will also remain because it would be prohibitively expensive for Metro to relocate all the tenants renting space there, Davis said. A number of billboard that rent space from Metro along the right-of-way will also be removed. Ridership on the Orange Line, which goes from North Hollywood to Warner Center, has exceeded expectations of Metro officials. The December 2008 boardings of 595,016 was a 21 percent increase over the total boardings from two years earlier. Forecast modeling through 2030 by Metro indicates that ridership on the extension to Chatsworth will be just as good, Davis said. “We don’t have the density yet but the west Valley is growing and we are optimistic,” Davis added.