Sales Tax Surcharge Upheld : Transportation: State appeals court ruling spares transit programs from postponement, cuts or cancellation. Libertarians plan an appeal.

Sparing about a dozen transportation programs from postponement, curtailment or cancellation, the 2nd District Court of Appeal on Thursday unanimously upheld the legality of Los Angeles County’s second half-cent sales tax surcharge.

The state court ruling is significant because it is the first after a state Supreme Court decision last month overturning a San Diego County sales tax surcharge used to build new courts and jails.

The Supreme Court ruled that the San Diego tax was illegal because it was levied by a special district created after 1978’s landmark Proposition 13 to provide a service normally paid for with property taxes.

However, the lower court said that the Los Angeles tax is legal because it generates money for an agency, the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, formed before Proposition 13 to provide a service not historically paid for with property taxes.

The Supreme Court used similar logic in a 1982 decision upholding the legality of the first Los Angeles County transportation sales tax surcharge. That levy, authorized by Proposition A in 1980, is in effect. Both taxes will be levied until transit bonds are repaid early in the next century.

“On the one hand, our response is ‘Whew!’ ” LACTC Executive Director Neil Peterson said of the ruling. “But on the other hand, there is one more hurdle to go.”

He said the Libertarian Party members challenging the tax have 120 days in which to ask the state Supreme Court to review the lower court ruling. Santa Ana lawyer Mark Rosen, who represented the Libertarians, said he will ask for such a review.

“I think the justices were wrong, and we’re going to appeal,” Rosen said. “I think the San Diego case went beyond special districts formed after 1978.”

Until the time for appeal passes, or the Supreme Court issues its ruling, the LACTC will continue to deposit money collected under the sales tax surcharge in an escrow account, Peterson said.

The commission has been spending the interest from the escrow account for several projects, such as the Freeway Service Patrol. Under that program, tow trucks cruise the county’s busiest freeways at rush hour, offering assistance, free gas and minor repairs to stalled motorists.

Revenue from Proposition C is designed to fund a variety of projects, including an extension of the Metro Blue Line from Los Angeles to Pasadena and construction of the Orange Line subway from the Westside to the Eastside.

Proposition C also is slated to pay for expansion of bus service in the county, the addition of car-pool lanes on half the county’s freeways, establishment of a regional bikeway network, construction of new park-and-ride lots, and development of computer-controlled traffic signals to ease congestion on major thoroughfares.

Peterson said that without the Proposition C money, all those programs would have to be delayed, scaled back or canceled.

The county’s two half-cent sales tax surcharges each generate about $400 million a year for transportation improvements.