Senate’s OK of Transit Bill Seen as Southland Windfall : Financing: Officials jubilant over approval of $151-billion measure that puts greater focus on mass transportation and improves local control over projects.

The decision Wednesday by Congress to refocus federal transportation policy on mass transit after a generation of emphasis on highways will open money faucets for subways, car pool lanes and other rapid transit projects--just what Southern California needs, local officials said.

Neil Peterson of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission said that the six-year, $151-billion transportation bill approved by the Senate is a “spectacular” boost to Southern California’s ambitious plan to build the nation’s second-largest rail rapid transit network in a decade.

“Word for word,” he said, “it (the bill) is just what we wanted.”

In Sacramento, state officials echoed his comments, noting that the measure will give California a bigger share of federal transportation dollars than it has received in past years.

Carl Covitz, the state’s secretary of business, transportation and housing, said California normally gets back in transportation funds only 85% of the federal gas tax dollars collected in the state. New formulas in the bill will give the state a pay-back of about 92%, he said.

“That’s more money for California than we’ve ever had before in terms of the amount that is returned to us from federal fuel taxes. We’re delighted with it,” he said.

Over the next six years, the measure will funnel more than $15 billion into the state for the construction and improvement of roadways and public transportation systems. Covitz said that will allow the state to go forward with a massive transportation program initiated in 1990, when voters approved increases in the state gasoline tax and bond issues for mass transit. Without the passage of the bill and the federal funds it authorizes, officials said the state may have had to stop $450 million in new projects scheduled for approval early next year.

In addition to the new funds, the bill contains several technical changes that Covitz said will give state and local officials greater flexibility to design transportation projects.

Although the bill, for example, designates $10.5 billion to be spent on highways over the next six years, it allows officials to shift some of that money to mass transit projects if the state decides those projects are more important.

“For the first time, (federal law) provides the opportunity to direct more transportation funds into the solution that makes the most sense locally, whether it be highways, buses or rail,” Peterson said.

“That’s the hallmark of this legislation,” he added. “It finally recognizes that we have a transportation and congestion problem--not just a highway problem or a bus problem or a rail problem, but an overall mobility problem--and that local people are in the best position to decide how to solve it.”

In congested urban areas, including metropolitan Los Angeles, transportation officials said they expect this new flexibility will particularly benefit mass-transit projects.

“In urban areas such as Los Angeles . . . unfettered highway construction is clearly not the answer to congestion and gridlock, nor to improving vital air quality,” Rep. Edward R. Roybal (D-Los Angeles) said in a prepared statement.

Chief beneficiaries of the compromise bill sent to the White House on Wednesday are the Metro Red and Orange subway lines along the most heavily congested travel corridors in Los Angeles.

Out of the $15 billion in federal transportation funds allocated to California over the next six years, the bill provides $695 million to extend the Red Line from Hollywood into the San Fernando Valley, as well as to extend the nascent Orange Line west to San Vicente and Pico boulevards and east from Union Station to Whittier and Atlantic boulevards.

The extensions, which by law must be finished simultaneously, will add 11.6 miles and at least seven stations to the county’s heavy-rail subway lines, which planners describe as the county’s mass-transit “backbone.”

The bill also includes $20 million to improve service on the Los Angeles-to-San Diego commuter trains. Additional funds are earmarked for special high-volume bus lanes on Santa Monica Boulevard through the Westside and car pool lanes on the Santa Ana and Long Beach freeways.

These federal funds will be leveraged with large local resources generated by two half-cent sales-tax surcharges. One of them, approved by voters in 1980, is already being collected and spent. The other, approved in 1990, is being challenged in court.

Authorization to expand Los Angeles’ embryonic subway system, the first segment of which is scheduled to open in June, 1993, came only after California delegation members, led by Roybal, agreed that all three extensions will open at the same time, in 2001.

The Red Line extension will stretch from Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street up to Chandler and Lankershim boulevards in North Hollywood, with interim stations at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue and near Universal City.

The western Orange Line extension will run from Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue to San Vicente and Pico boulevards. It will have an interim station near Olympic and Crenshaw boulevards.

It cannot continue under heavily congested Wilshire Boulevard because of a large number of potentially explosive underground methane gas pockets in the area.

Meanwhile, several routes are being studied for the eastern Orange Line extension, which will run between Union Station and the intersection of Whittier and Atlantic boulevards. One of three routes under study would run under Macy Street and Brooklyn Avenue, another under 1st Street and the third beneath Whittier Boulevard. All three options would include interim stations at Soto and Lorena streets.

While pleased with the new spending flexibility the bill affords, Covitz said he was disappointed that lawmakers continued to earmark money for specific transportation projects that had not been given high priority by state and local officials.

For example, the bill requires the spending of $9.5 million for a grade separation project at Sepulveda Boulevard and Alameda Street and $11.8 million for an interchange in Long Beach at Terminal Island Freeway and Ocean Blvd.

Stein reported from Los Angeles and Ellis from Sacramento.

Dollars for Transit

Following are some of the major Los Angeles-area transit projects expected to be funded as a result of Congressional approval of a transit bill on Wednesday. Area: Los Angeles. Amount: $1.23 billion. Details: For Metro Rail construction of 11.6 miles and at least seven stations, extending Metro Rail service to North Hollywood, Pico/San Vicente and at least three miles in East Los Angeles.

Area: Los Angeles and Orange counties. Amount: $6.7 million. Details: For preliminary work to enhance capacity of I-5.

Area: Port Hueneme. Amount: $8.9 million. Details: To extend Rice Road, widen Hueneme Road, and construct the California 1/Rice Road Interchange.

Area: Anaheim. Amount: $14.8 million. Details: To build public high-occupancy-vehicle facilities to provide better access to I-5.

Area: Long Beach. Amount: $8.5 million. Details: To improve access to Long Beach Airport.

Area: San Diego-Los Angeles. Amount: $20 million. Details: To improve rail corridor between San Diego and Los Angeles.

Area: Los Angeles. Amount: $15 million. Details: For construction of a transit parkway in western Los Angeles.

Area: Los Angeles. Amount: $8.9 million. Details: For construction of a transit parkway, including highway and transit improvements, on Santa Monica Boulevard from San Diego Freeway to Hollywood Freeway.

Area: Compton. Amount: $11.8 million. Details: For widening of Alameda Street and grade separation between California 91 and Del Amo Boulevard.

Area: Long Beach. Amount: $13.9 million. Details: For construction of a bus maintenance facility.

Area: Long Beach. Amount: $11.8 million. Details: For interchange at Terminal Island Freeway and Ocean Boulevard. SOURCE: Office of U.S. Sen. John Seymour