Transit Officials Urge Reopening Rail Line Talks : Transportation: County Supervisor Ed Edelman wants new negotiations for 173 miles of abandoned Southern Pacific track for commuter rail lines.

Flushed with the success of the Los Angeles-Long Beach Light Rail Line opening, county transit officials Thursday called for the resumption of formal negotiations with the Southern Pacific Transportation Co. for the purchase of 173 miles of additional right of way for commuter rail lines.

“I’m asking Southern Pacific to come back to the bargaining table,” said county Supervisor Ed Edelman, who chairs the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. “The public wants light rail . . . and the commission, using good judgment, can reach agreement with the Southern Pacific.”

Negotiations between the two sides began last year for rarely used and abandoned lines that would help connect such communities as San Bernardino, Santa Monica and Santa Clarita.

But the talks stalled in June with the two sides far apart on price. Thursday, as on previous occasions, county and railroad officials refused to discuss financial details for the track acquisition.

“There should be no mistake--we’re going to do it at a fair price to the public,” LACTC Executive Director Neil Peterson said at a morning news conference. “(But) we’re wide apart.”

Tom Houston, Southern Pacific’s Los Angeles counsel, said the railroad has offered the property at 65% of its “across the fence” worth, a figure based on the assessed value of adjacent properties under current zoning. The LACTC, however, has offered only 25% to 30% of the “across the fence value”--a figure that approximates the assessed liquidated value of the property, Houston said.

Later, Peterson termed Houston’s percentages inaccurate, but he did acknowledge that the commission’s most recent offer was based on the property’s lower, liquidated value.

Southern Pacific spokesman Jim Loveland said Thursday that railroad officials, who first offered the tracks to the public in May, 1989, “are ready to discuss the sale of the property at any time.”

Speaking to reporters on a City Terrace bridge over Southern Pacific tracks that run next to the crowded San Bernardino Freeway, Peterson said that the LACTC “is bound and determined to get these rights of way one way or another.”

Peterson, however, appeared to shy away from the notion of condemnation, noting that such proceedings could take years and pose “a complicated legal issue.”

Transit officials are hoping to link the lines to other planned elements of a new regional public transit system that would include the $3.4-billion Metro Rail subway now under construction and the Los Angeles-Long Beach Blue Line, which far exceeded ridership expectations when it began running this week. Southern Pacific’s offer marks a unique opportunity to purchase pre-existing track that could help re-rail the Southland with a system somewhat similar to the old Red Car trolley system, which closed in 1961.

The morning press conference marked the latest effort to jockey for position.

Hoping to rally public opinion in the wake of the Blue Line opening last weekend, county transit officials urged environmental and community groups that support additional rail service to put pressure on Southern Pacific for financial concessions.

The LACTC has made “a very significant offer,” Peterson said. But despite the recent passage of two statewide transportation bond referendums, he added, the LACTC has “scarce resources” to purchase the tracks.

Houston countered that LACTC has offered a low-ball price, apparently hoping that Southern Pacific will jump at the chance to receive a cash infusion. But the railroad is no longer in financial turmoil, he added, and will not act in haste.

Houston, who attended the press conference as an observer, said if the LACTC has insufficient funds to buy the entire 173 miles of track, it could purchase one or two lines individually.

The LACTC also faces continuing pressure from some homeowner groups that oppose commuter lines passing through their neighborhoods. If the tracks are purchased, officials said, they would plan to inaugurate rail service within two years on some lines; but other rights of way might not be used for rail service for several more years, if at all.