Resolution Sought on Disputed Freeway : Transit: Lawmakers ask state panel to OK extension of Interstate 710 through South Pasadena. The proposal has been debated for decades.

State lawmakers representing surrounding communities pleaded with the California Transportation Commission on Thursday to settle a 30-year controversy by approving extension of the Long Beach Freeway through South Pasadena.

Sens. Newton Russell (R-Glendale) and Charles Calderon (D-Whittier) urged the panel to overrule the objections of the city of South Pasadena and use revenues from a 5-cents per gallon gasoline tax increase to help close the 6.2-mile gap in the Long Beach Freeway (Interstate 710) between the Foothill Freeway and Valley Boulevard in Alhambra.

“After 30 years I think it’s time,” Russell said. “We’ve done everything we can . . . to try to solve this. I think now is the time that we just must go forward. We can’t allow this (traffic) impaction to occur any longer.”

Calling traffic along the freeway gap “unbearable,” Calderon said it is time that South Pasadena residents began to pay the same price for progress that other Los Angeles communities have had to pay.

“I don’t think the wealthy community of South Pasadena can any more stand in the way of maybe the less-wealthy communities like Alhambra and Monterey Park who need completion of these projects,” he said.

But Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles), whose district includes South Pasadena, argued that the freeway extension through the center of the city would displace 3,000 residents, destroy historic homes and buildings and could cause environmental damage. He asked the state panel to put off any decision at least until 1992 “when hopefully we will have a solution to the problem.”

“The transportation needs of South California are not going to be resolved by completing the 710 Freeway,” he said.

Russell and Calderon, however, won immediate support from at least one commission member, Joseph Levy of Fresno, who suggested that a new alternative might be to build the freeway underground at South Pasadena with no exits or entrances in the center of the city.

He acknowledged a freeway tunnel “might cost more,” but he said it would mean historic homes would not have to be demolished and thousands of residents would not be displaced. The suggestion did not produce any reaction from the other commission members.

“This (completion of the freeway) would do more to relieve the central core of Los Angeles than any other thing that we can physically do in the next 10 years,” Levy said.

Russell and Calderon already have another important ally in the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which has formally recommended that the state commission include two projects related to the extension of the Long Beach Freeway in its new seven-year State Transportation Improvement Program.

Under new guidelines established by the Legislature, all recommendations for inclusion of local road projects in the program must come through regional transportation agencies; their recommendations are expected to carry great weight with the commission.

The transportation improvement program sets priorities and determines funding sources for all the state’s highway and rail projects. Any project that is not included in the State Transportation Improvement Program is not likely to be built any time in the near future.

This year’s road program, which the commission is expected to approve next month, has particular importance because commissioners will use it to help map their plans for spending revenues from the gas tax increase that took effect Aug. 1 and the penny increases that will be added every Jan. 1 for the next four years.

The senators pleading for and against the Long Beach Freeway extension were among dozens of lawmakers who appeared before the commission Thursday to push for the inclusion of their pet road and rail projects.

Other projects that drew attention included the widening of California 14 to the Antelope Valley and the construction of passing lanes along California 138 in the same area.

Assemblyman Phillip Wyman (R-Tehachapi) said Antelope Valley, one of the fastest-growing areas in California, has effectively been “bottled up” by highways that are not adequate to carry the region’s traffic.

“It’s terrible. It’s disastrous,” said state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita).