Council Asks That Valley Rail Line Be Top Priority : Transportation: But the action may be an empty symbol because the commission favors building LAX and Pasadena routes first.

The Los Angeles City Council voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to request that the San Fernando Valley get priority over two competing areas for construction of the next mass transit rail line, but the vote may have been an empty symbol.

The 12-3 vote may have little effect because the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission appears bent on approving a plan by its staff under which the Valley line--an extension to Van Nuys of the downtown-to-North Hollywood Metro Rail subway--would be built after the other two lines.

The first to be constructed under the county commission’s plan would be a 2.5-mile spur from the western terminus of the Century Freeway light-rail line to Los Angeles International Airport, and second would be a 13.5-mile light-rail line from downtown to Pasadena.

The plan assumes that California voters on June 5 will approve ballot propositions raising the gasoline tax by 9 cents per gallon and allowing the sale of billions of dollars in rail construction bonds to pay for mass transit.

Councilman Richard Alatorre, the only City Council member on the county commission--which will make the final decision--minimized the importance of Wednesday’s council vote, saying, “I don’t think there are three votes” on the 11-member commission for placing the Valley ahead of the Pasadena and LAX lines.

Alatorre, whose northeast Los Angeles district would be served by the Pasadena line, said he would not be bound by the council vote when the commission takes up the plan next Wednesday.

Actually, even some of the most passionate proponents of the Valley rail line seem resigned to the commission staff’s $2.2-billion plan for staggering construction of the three projects over the next 11 years.

Councilman Marvin Braude, one of the earliest proponents of a Valley Metro Rail extension, conceded that it might not be possible to build the Valley line first. But Braude nonetheless urged the council to make a “symbolic gesture” on behalf of the proposed Valley line by approving a motion requesting that the commission make building the Valley line “the No. 1 priority.”

Braude and state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana) last year put together a coalition of business, civic and homeowner group leaders in support of the Metro Rail extension from North Hollywood to the San Diego Freeway along the Southern Pacific railroad right of way that parallels Chandler and Victory boulevards.

A key to getting support from homeowners, who had been worried about noise from a ground-level system, was an agreement to place the line underground through a four-mile residential area of North Hollywood.

Braude and other proponents of the Valley line did not directly respond in Wednesday’s debate to the repeated assertion by Neil Peterson, the county commission’s executive director, that it would make no sense to build a Valley extension of Metro Rail until the subway reaches North Hollywood from downtown, which is not scheduled to occur until 2001.

Peterson said that because half the cost of the the $4-billion downtown-to-North Hollywood portion of Metro Rail will be paid by federal funds, the commission is unable to speed up the construction timetable.

Despite Peterson’s claim that completion of the downtown-to-North Hollywood Metro Rail segment is all but assured, council members Joel Wachs and Joy Picus expressed doubts that federal funds to complete the line to the Valley would be available, citing recent statements by the Bush Administration suggesting that local governments should pay a larger share of transportation costs.

Wachs warned that the commission staff’s plan “dooms the Valley to failure.” Under the 11-year construction plan, work on the Valley extension would begin in 1996 and be completed in 2001.

Construction on the LAX line would begin next year and be completed in 1994 at the same time the Century Freeway line is completed. The plan envisions work starting on the Pasadena line in 1994, with completion in 1998.

The commission’s Transit Committee on Monday voted 3 to 1 to approve the plan’s construction schedule, with the lone dissenter suggesting that the Pasadena line ought to be built before the LAX spur.

Commissioners have warned that if voters reject the June 5 transportation spending propositions, there probably will be only enough money for one new rail line in this century.