Panel OKs Rail Lines, Including LAX Link : Transit: Others would run to Pasadena and across eastern San Fernando Valley. But plan relies heavily on voter approval of propositions in June.

Los Angeles County transit officials voted Wednesday to build rail lines to Los Angeles International Airport, to Pasadena and across the eastern San Fernando Valley over the next 11 years, provided California voters in June approve $18.5 billion in added statewide transportation spending and local cities also chip in money.

The $2.2-billion rail-construction plan was approved by a 9-2 vote of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

The first of a new generation of rail lines--the Long Beach-Los Angeles light-rail line--is scheduled to open July 16. Nearly 60 miles of line have been approved and about 40 miles are now under construction. Wednesday’s action would add nearly 22 miles to that system.

Approved Wednesday were:

* A 2 1/2-mile northern spur to the airport from the western terminus of the Century Freeway light-rail line, now under construction.

* A 13 1/2-mile light-rail line from downtown to Pasadena.

* And a 5.6-mile westward extension to the San Diego Freeway in Van Nuys of the Metro Rail subway being built from downtown to North Hollywood.

Under the schedule adopted by the commission, the LAX spur would be completed in 1994, the Pasadena line in 1998 and the cross-Valley line in 2001, the same year that Metro Rail is scheduled to reach North Hollywood.

But the plan rests heavily on the hope that California voters on June 5 will approve ballot propositions raising the gasoline tax by 9 cents a gallon over five years and allowing the sale of billions of dollars in rail construction bonds.

Without the $1.2 billion anticipated from the state if the propositions pass, commissioners say they probably will have only enough money to build one more line in this century. The other $1 billion would come from city treasuries and the extra half-cent sales tax that county voters approved in 1980.

“We’re betting on the come here,” said County Supervisor Ed Edelman, who chairs the commission, using gambler’s jargon for putting hoped-for future winnings at risk.

In addition to relying on statewide voter approval of the transportation propositions, the commission plan assumes that affected cities--Los Angeles, Pasadena and South Pasadena--will contribute $309 million toward construction, or that the projects can be scaled back by that amount.

Costs could be cut by elimination of stations and building some sections with only single tracks for now, commission staff members said.

But Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents an East Valley district, predicted the city would not contribute more money unless the commission alters its schedule to get the Metro Rail subway to North Hollywood earlier than 2001.

“I suspect there are enough votes on the City Council to make that not a threat but a reality,” Wachs said.

Other elected officials also pressured the commission, which consists of the five county supervisors, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, four council members from various cities and one public member.

Declared Alhambra City Councilman Michael Blanco: “We desire, we deserve and we demand that the Pasadena line be built first.”

The proposed Valley line, estimated to cost $1.3 billion, would be built in the Southern Pacific railroad right-of-way that parallels Chandler and Victory boulevards. In the industrial area between Hazeltine Avenue and the line’s terminus at the San Diego Freeway south of Victory Boulevard, the tracks would be at ground level. They would run underground in residential areas of North Hollywood and Van Nuys.

The Pasadena line would be built through Northeast Los Angeles in the Santa Fe Railroad right-of-way that roughly parallels the Pasadena Freeway and Arroyo Parkway. At the Foothill Freeway, it would be in the median to Sierra Madre Villa in eastern Pasadena. The line would cost an estimated $688 million.

The LAX spur, which carries a $215-million price tag, would cut across one of the airport’s long-term parking lots, where airport-bound passengers would transfer to shuttle buses or a people-mover, then end about half a mile north in Westchester.