President’s Day weekend was all it took for a Sherman Oaks engineer and architect duo to draft a mass transit concept from Van Nuys to LAX that they think gives Metro’s own proposals a run for their money.

The big idea? A monorail running above the 405 freeway median — straight down the middle — that could be cheaper and easier to build while minimizing impacts on neighborhood streets from the South San Fernando Valley to the Westside.

After Metro revealed its updated Sepulveda Transit Corridor options in late January, Sherman Oaks residents made clear to Metro and LA City their opposition to any above-ground transit options in the Valley, citing quality of life concerns and perceived secondary treatment to Westside neighborhoods.

Retired space engineer Bob Anderson of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association and neighborhood council hoped not just to complain about Metro’s current options but to offer alternatives. So he enlisted local civil architect Jeff Kalban, and the two have since delivered a rather polished powerpoint presentation about their concept to groups of active neighbors and Councilmember David Ryu’s office at City Hall.

“I took a look at Sherman Oaks and said to Bob, ‘I think we can have an alternative way to get a monorail to LAX without having to ruin the streets of Sherman Oaks,’ ” said Kalban at the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council meeting Monday. “So this is what we came up with.”

The Council passed a measure to support the proposal, and a letter to Metro staff from the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assosciation emphasizes a continued preference for the two fully underground heavy rail options known as HRT1 and HRT2 but presents MRT2 — a dual-track monorail above the 405 median — as a more affordable option.

In their words, an idea “Just In Case Metro Cannot Truly Afford SOHA’s Preferred Fully Underground Heavy Rail Concepts.”

Their concept, called MRT2, would operate at slightly lower capacity than Metro’s proposed underground heavy rail concept and take 26 minutes for the full route instead of 15 or 16. It includes the same number of stations as Metro proposals, but at slightly different locations.

The belief that laypeople like themselves know better than the professionals comes not from hubris, Anderson insisted, but rather concern for their community and commitment to influencing a process that will impact their neighborhood for decades to come.

“Whatever is done these next few months in planning will be there for your descendants as far forward as you can think,” said neighborhood council president Ron Ziff.

But Metro, whose staff is currently studying and selecting the project’s final concepts, doesn’t appear to be keen on the idea.

LA Metro Communications Manager Dave Sotero said in an email responding to the Sherman Oaks proposal: “We are not considering it … because the freeway median is needed for the Measure M-funded ExpressLanes project.”

Metro had already considered and eliminated its own 405 freeway median-running concept, he said.

“Additionally, the Sherman Oaks Homeowners alternative option misses an on-campus station at UCLA,” he added, which is “expected to be a significant contributor to high daily ridership on the new line.”

The ExpressLanes project aims to improve traffic by building express lanes on the 405 between the US 101 and I-10 freeways.

Of Metro’s apparent rejection, retired engineer behind SOHA’s MRT2 concept said “These are lame excuses and I think it’s pathetic that they would tell you that and not tell me.”

MRT2’s station at Wilshire is around one mile from UCLA, unlike Metro’s options which would take riders directly to campus.

“I’ll agree that our station is at Wilshire, but there are ways to get to UCLA. And if Metro is using ExpressLanes as an excuse not to build the best system possible then that’s not right,” he added.

The project to connect the Los Angeles Basin to the San Fernando Valley and supplement the I-405 is part of Metro’s Twenty Eight by ’28 initiative, which aims to complete it by the 2028 Summer Olympics.

It is slated to receive around $10 billion in funding from Metro’s Measures R and M, approved by L.A. Country voters in 2008 and 2016. The route expects to see between 105,000 to 133,000 riders every day, and estimated project costs have not been released.

The second phase of the project, from the Expo Line to LAX, is not due to break ground until 2048. Metro officials expect to reveal cost projections at community meetings later this year.