All 3 Rail Plans Recommended in Planners’ Report : Transit: The findings are indicative of intense lobbying for and against the plans. The county will choose one of the options, possibly as soon as Feb. 28.

Unwilling to choose from among three rival San Fernando Valley rail plans, mass transit planners on Friday gave their recommendation to all three, setting the stage for a decisive battle in the coming weeks.

The recommended plans are an extension of the Metro Rail subway from North Hollywood to the San Diego Freeway, a light-rail line in a shallow trench from North Hollywood to Warner Center and an elevated rail line along the Ventura Freeway from Universal City to Warner Center.

The long-awaited report by professional rail planners now goes to the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which is scheduled to choose one of the options, possibly as early as Feb. 28.

The commission’s staff recommendations show the effects of intensive lobbying in recent weeks by elected officials on behalf of two of the plans.

The freeway elevated line and the Metro Rail extension, both of which have prominent advocates and well-organized opponents, have been altered in recent weeks to make them less expensive and easier to build.

The 11-member commission, which is building a countywide network of rail lines, has given no clear signal on how it might vote on the competing plans.

Complicating the picture is the fact that in addition to the dueling Valley plans, the commission has pitted the Valley against two other areas for the next rail line, which planners say will be the last to be built locally in this century.

In competition with the Valley are proposed light-rail lines from El Segundo to Marina del Rey and from downtown Los Angeles through northeast Los Angeles to Pasadena, both of which have strong political backing on the commission.

In addition, county supervisors on Tuesday placed the three Valley rail alternatives recommended in the staff report Friday on the June 5 ballot, a move that could further complicate the route-selection process.

The Valley proposal with the greatest support is the 5.6-mile extension of the downtown-to-North Hollywood Metro Rail subway to the San Diego Freeway along the Southern Pacific freight right-of-way that parallels Chandler and Victory boulevards.

The route traverses numerous residential neighborhoods and has ignited fierce opposition from homeowner groups.

However, the subway extension, proposed last May by state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) and Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude, has brought together warring homeowners and business leaders.

Business leaders gave up their drive for a line that would reach all the way to Warner Center. In exchange, many, but not all, homeowner leaders dropped their firm opposition to any line that intrudes in single-family areas.

Robbins said Friday that he remains “confident that it is the only plan that will work.”

He acknowledged having a hand in key changes in the subway plan that pruned $200 million from the $1.3-billion cost estimate the staff presented at public hearings in December.

He said the cost savings were achieved by halting the line at the San Diego Freeway rather than Balboa Boulevard, moving the North Hollywood station from Chandler and Lankershim boulevards to Chandler and Tujunga Avenue and eliminating a proposed rail maintenance yard in the Valley.

Commission sources said that while Robbins and other subway advocates were massaging their proposal in recent weeks, Supervisor Mike Antonovich also was reshaping his rival plan for an elevated monorail along the Ventura Freeway.

Efforts by the supervisor, who contends that only a futuristic monorail system will lure motorists from their cars, have reduced the estimated cost of a 16.5-mile line spanning the Valley by about $300 million from the $2.1-billion cost projected in December.

County public works planners, acting at Antonovich’s behest, recently secured an important concession from the state Department of Transportation that would allow pillars supporting an elevated line to be placed between on- and off-ramps and the freeway lanes, sources said.

According to commission executive director Neil Peterson, that change in alignment reduces to 20 the number of houses to be demolished for a freeway rail line. Previous estimates ranged from 200 to 500 houses.

Also contributing to the lowered cost estimate was acceptance by the commission staff of a proposal that parking lots could be built on the north side of the freeway with rail passengers walking under the freeway lanes to board trains.

Caltrans has insisted that the north shoulder of the freeway be left available for a possible upper deck, which is under study.

The third alternative--light rail in a shallow trench along the Southern Pacific right of way--has been a staff favorite throughout the three-year study of Valley rail alternatives.

Such a light-rail system could be built from North Hollywood to Warner Center for $1.1 billion, the report states.

While that plan initially enjoyed strong support among business groups, most such advocates abandoned it in favor of the Robbins-Braude subway plan.

Robert H. Silver, a leader of the North Hollywood-based Eastern Sector Transit Coalition, said Friday that his group, which never endorsed the Robbins-Braude plan, was organizing to make a strong showing against both plans that use the Southern Pacific right of way.

“We expect hundreds to attend to argue that neither plan is acceptable,” he said. “We don’t trust the commission. They will get the route established, then because of financial considerations the plan will be modified to surface rail.”

The staff report will first be aired at 9 a.m. Wednesday at a meeting in Los Angeles of the commission’s five-member Transit Committee.

The committee is expected to make a recommendation to the full commission, which meets Feb. 28.