The enhancements to mass transit service for CSUN and the Northwest San Fernando Valley, which were approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2016’s Measure M, are moving toward implementation. Metro hosted an information session on the planned route for the North San Fernando Valley Bus Rapid Transit (North SFV BRT) Line project Monday, Aug. 12, at CSUN’s Orange Grove Bistro.

The line of community members there to learn more and engage with a series of informational booths started before the event and continued past the scheduled closing time of 8 p.m. Nearly 300 people participated. The informational meeting was the third in a series, following ones held in Panorama City and North Hollywood.

Information stations lined the large room as attendees visited the stations in order to learn more about the project and its history, including effects on specific intersections and areas, potential traffic congestion relief, and information on other Bus Rapid Transit projects in California (the Metro Orange Line, Metro Silver Line, Wilshire BRT, San Jose BRT and San Bernardino BRT). Metro project team members were available for questions and comments.

A map of the San Fernando Valley, with the new route highlighted, sat in the center of the room. Sticky notes and pens allowed visitors to leave comments on specific sections of the map. Refreshments were served in a separate room, giving attendees a chance to fill out survey forms for their feedback.

The North SFV BRT Line project was designed to provide an east-west transit service to link key activity centers and improve access to jobs, education, essential services and the regional transit system. The new line is planned to connect directly with CSUN.

Metro’s development process comprises five steps: early planning, environmental review, engineering and design, construction, and operations and maintenance. The public input meeting was part of the early planning stage; the North SFV BRT Line is projected to open sometime between 2023 and 2025.

The project will have a positive impact on CSUN students, as the new line will create a direct route from the most dense student-resident areas to the university, helping to reduce the 160,000 single-occupancy vehicle trips to campus each week. Many students are likely to be riders: Metro ridership in the CSUN community has increased by 24 percent over the last five years, and CSUN students have purchased nearly 10,000 U-Passes since 2016, the year that the reduced-fare transit passes were created. More information on the project and its benefits to the campus and region is included in this flier.

The North SFV BRT Line project is scheduled to come up for consideration at the Thursday, Oct. 24, Metro Board of Directors regular meeting to accept the Alternatives Analysis report and advance the project to the environmental review stage. The Alternatives Analysis report can be viewed on the project’s website at https://www.metro.net/projects/north-sfv-brt/, and members of the public can sign up for project update emails and survey notifications by emailing northsfvbrt@metro.net.

This story has been updated to reflect new anticipated Metro Board of Directors meeting date.