Regional Groups Seek Rail Routes : Transportation: Two coalitions want the County Transportation Commission to approve links between Burbank Airport and Los Angeles and from Pasadena to Azusa.

Light-rail lines along the Foothill Freeway from eastern Pasadena to Azusa, along the Pomona Freeway and from Burbank Airport to Los Angeles should be top priorities of transit planners, the San Gabriel Valley Transportation Coalition has concluded.

The coalition, formed last fall by government and business leaders from 29 cities, listed a range of recommendations about how officials should remedy traffic congestion during the next 30 years.

In submitting its suggestions to the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission last month, the coalition also advocated stepping up the timing of construction of freeway lanes for high-occupancy vehicles on the Pomona (60), San Bernardino (10) and Orange (57) freeways.

The commission is expected to set priorities by March for $150 billion worth of rail, bus and roadway projects over the next 30 years.

But the current controversy about contracts for a high-tech driverless rail system for the Norwalk-to-El Segundo Green Line has delayed discussions on the 30-year plan. And regardless of the outcome of the debate, commission spokeswoman Lupe Valdez said, it could delay projects proposed for the San Gabriel Valley.

Last week, the Tri-City Transportation Coalition, which represents Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena business and governmental interests, echoed two of the San Gabriel Valley group’s rail suggestions. The Tri-City group ranked the Burbank-Glendale line as the first priority and the Pasadena-to-Azusa extension as the second.

In making their recommendations, both coalitions emphasized that construction of a Pasadena light-rail line, a Blue Line extension scheduled to be built from Union Station downtown, should proceed before any of the other projects. Construction of the Pasadena Blue Line was to have begun this year. However, an impasse in negotiations between the county transportation commission and the Santa Fe Railroad Co., which owns the rights of way, has delayed it.

The rail line initially is planned to go along the Foothill Freeway (210) to eastern Pasadena, possibly ending around Sierra Madre Boulevard.

The common recommendations from the Tri-City and San Gabriel Valley coalitions represent an acknowledgment that the two regions share traffic congestion problems and should unite their political forces in influencing the solutions, members of both groups said.

“They’re supporting us and we’re supporting them,” said Bradbury Councilwoman BeatriceLaPisto-Kirtley, a steering committee member of the San Gabriel group. Traffic congestion, she said, does not stop at city or county lines.

Alhambra City Manager Kevin J. Murphy, another steering committee member, said: “We’re not going to be just looking strictly at the San Gabriel Valley. We’re going to be looking at a holistic system of transportation.”

He said that will include looking closely at the rail, highway and bus proposals for adjacent areas of the county, such as the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena region, as well as neighboring Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

The San Gabriel coalition, Murphy said, is patterned after the Tri-City group, which was formed in 1989 and has lobbied actively on behalf of its members’ transportation interests.

Pasadena Councilwoman Kathryn Nack, president of Tri-City, said the two coalitions can be a great help to one another. “It will take all the support we can muster . . . to get what we need out here,” she said, “and that is transportation east and west, north and south.”

As part of its organizational efforts, the San Gabriel Valley group hired a West Covina-based transportation consultant, Forsythe & Associates, to analyze the draft of the transportation commission’s 30-year plan.

The Forsythe study concluded that the region “has lagged behind other portions of the county in receiving its fair share of transportation . . . investment and congestion relief.”

In recommending a speedier construction of freeway lanes for high-occupancy vehicles, the report said that work on the Orange Freeway, now proposed to start in 1993, should be linked to a similar project on the Pomona Freeway in the Diamond Bar area.

The Pomona Freeway project is not scheduled to begin until 1999. The coalition has recommended that the work begin in 1994, when the Orange Freeway lanes would be completed.

One reason for the urgency of these high-occupancy vehicle lanes, said Diamond Bar Mayor Pro Tem Phyllis Papen, is that Orange County already is building similar lanes on the Orange Freeway and they will be completed this year.

The Forsythe report made one recommendation that the coalition did not unanimously forward to the commission. The county transportation commission had suggested that work on the Long Beach Freeway (710) gap between Alhambra and Pasadena begin in 2006.

Despite objections from South Pasadena representatives on the coalition, the report recommended that construction on the Long Beach Freeway extension should begin by 2000.

Transportation Workshops

County transportation planners are holding a series of public workshops on proposed routes for a light-rail line from downtown Los Angeles to East Los Angeles and Monterey Park. Places and times:

* East Los Angeles Service Center, 133 N. Sunol Drive, 1 to 3 p.m. today. * Los Angeles County Transportation Commission headquarters, 818 W. 7th St., Los Angeles, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday.

* White Memorial Hospital, 1720 Brooklyn Ave., Los Angeles, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Tuesday.

More information is available, in English and Spanish, by calling (213) 244-6834.