Freeway Extension Foes Seek Mediation : Transportation: The state rejects South Pasadena’s call for more talks on options to the 6.2-mile project.

Opponents of the Long Beach Freeway extension called Thursday for state and federal transportation officials to submit to mediation on the controversial project designed to solve traffic congestion in the western San Gabriel Valley.

Responding to last week’s announcement of the state’s intention to push ahead with the freeway extension, San Francisco environmental attorney Antonio Rossmann, who represents the city of South Pasadena, challenged highway officials “to sit down with no commitments in advance” and discuss alternatives to building the 6.2-mile project.

Otherwise, Rossmann declared, “we will resist by all lawful means.”

But Jerry Baxter, director of the state Department of Transportation office overseeing Los Angeles County, said he and other highway officials are unwilling to agree to Rossmann’s request.

“Enough is enough,” Baxter said. For three decades, he said, Caltrans has held numerous community meetings, and considered and studied dozens of alternative routes.

He did say, however, that he wants to talk with opponents about how to design a freeway route that would minimize harm to the environment and to historic structures.

Rossmann rejected the idea of meeting about freeway design issues. “That’s like someone saying: ‘We’re going to shoot you. Now let’s design the funeral as nice as possible.’ ” he said.

The project, costing an estimated $630 million to $660 million, would extend the Long Beach Freeway from the San Bernardino Freeway in Los Angeles north to the Foothill Freeway in Pasadena. Eight traffic lanes and two light-rail lines would pass through South Pasadena, closing what planners view as the last significant gap in the county’s freeway system.

At a press conference on Thursday, opponents--including South Pasadena City Council members, environmentalists and historic preservationists from state and national organizations--publicly renewed their pledge to fight. But they also said they hoped to avoid court action if transportation officials will meet with them about alternatives to a freeway through South Pasadena.

Standing in front of a 1920s Spanish-style house in the proposed freeway path, Rossmann said his clients want to discuss with highway officials an “alternative that would remove a lot of the congestion.” This includes, he said, improvements to existing South Pasadena streets and changes at both ends of the gap.

Another speaker, Stanley Hart, a Sierra Club representative, said: “It isn’t just South Pasadena that is going to suffer . . . it is the entire community of Los Angeles. This project will not (help) traffic congestion or air pollution. . . . It will increase it.”

The money, he said, should be used instead for light-rail projects.

In 1973 the Sierra Club joined South Pasadena in a successful lawsuit to force environmental studies of the proposal. An injunction from that lawsuit remains in effect.