2 New Offers Slash Cost Estimates for Valley Rail Line : Transportation: Plans are presented to build a track above the Ventura Freeway for up to $730 million below the county price tag. The panel delays a recommendation.

Two private consortiums have offered to build an elevated rail line over the Ventura Freeway for up to $730 million less than county transportation officials had estimated, and $1.2 billion cheaper than a rival, mostly underground line across the San Fernando Valley, officials said Wednesday.

The cost estimates for the controversial freeway line were released prior to a meeting of a panel of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission that was scheduled to recommend one of two east-west rail lines. However, members of the Planning and Mobility Improvement Committee decided to forgo a recommendation, leaving the final decision to the entire commission, which will vote at a Dec. 16 meeting.

The commission had asked several private partnerships to submit proposals for either the elevated rail or the mostly underground line, known as the Burbank-Chandler route because it would run parallel to Burbank and Chandler boulevards.

Only two partnerships submitted plans for the elevated line and none offered to build the Burbank-Chandler route.

County transportation officials had estimated that the 16.2-mile elevated freeway line would cost $2.59 billion, compared to $3.03 billion for the 14-mile Burbank-Chandler line.

A partnership headed by Matra Transit, a Chicago-based subsidiary of a French urban transit company, offered to build an automated guideway line, similar to the technology used on the Metro Blue Line, for $1.86 billion, or about 30% less than the county estimate. That line would only be built as part of a high-speed rail line connecting Los Angeles International Airport and Palmdale. Estimates on the LAX-to-Palmdale line have not been released.

A second partnership headed by Bombardier Inc. of Canada has offered to build an elevated line using a choice of three different rail technologies, including monorail, for as little as $1.94 billion, or about 25% less than the county estimate. The partnership has offered to build the line by itself or as part of the LAX-to-Palmdale line.

Norman Jester, a county transportation project manager, stressed at the meeting that the estimates were non-binding and that the final costs could increase. He also said that the estimates may be low because the partnerships are expecting to save money by building the east-west Valley line as part of a longer, LAX-to-Palmdale line.

Nonetheless, Jester said the bids demonstrated that the project could be built cheaper than county officials had expected. “There appears to be potential for significant savings,” he said.

John Marino, senior vice president of Matra Transit, said after the meeting that the private bids were lower mainly because the county’s estimates were inflated. But he said his group’s bid is solid and the only reason it did not make the bid binding is that it would have cost millions of dollars to legally indemnify all the partners to hold them to the bid.

Tom Stone, an executive at Bombardier, said his bid is also solid. “We have high confidence in our cost estimate,” he said.

The lower estimates offered by the private consortiums represent a small victory for supporters of the freeway line, who have argued that an elevated line would be less expensive and take less time to build. Supporters of the freeway line, including Supervisor Mike Antonovich, chairman of the Transportation Commission, have supported putting a low-noise monorail above the median of the freeway.

The meeting attracted a small but vocal group of Valley residents, including opponents and supporters of both routes. Several opponents of the elevated freeway line questioned the cost estimates of the private partnerships.

“We don’t believe the costs we are hearing,” said Polly Ward, vice president of the Studio City Residents Assn., which is part of a coalition of homeowner groups along the freeway route that opposes the elevated line. “If you go with the freeway route you are not counting the cost to the residents.”

Ward and other opponents of the elevated freeway line have argued that it would create noise, traffic and visual blight for homeowners near the freeway.

Supporters of the elevated line, including several homeowner groups whose members live along the Burbank-Chandler line route, argue that the freeway is the best place for a rail line because motorists stuck in freeway traffic will see the line and most likely use it.

Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Assn., one of the homeowner groups backing the elevated line, pointed out that an advisory referendum on the 1990 ballot indicated that 48% of Valley residents supported a monorail line over the freeway, while 21% supported a light-rail line in a shallow ditch, 20% supported no rail, and only 10% backed a subway.

After the meeting, Marino said that none of the private partnerships offered to build the Burbank-Chandler line because the risk of building a subway in the Valley is high due to unknown geological factors they may face while tunneling, such as high underground water tables and mineral deposits. Marino said it would be nearly impossible for the commission to find a company that would be willing to build a subway in the Valley.

Jester disagreed with Marino, saying that if the commission wanted a private firm to build a subway, it would first conduct extensive geological tests to address the unanswered soil questions.

The decision by the Planning and Mobility Committee not to make recommendations puzzled several county staff members and residents attending the meeting. During the meeting, members of the committee did not discuss when they decided against making a recommendation or why they made that decision.

In a break during the meeting, Nikolas Patsaouras, who represents Antonovich on the committee, said only that the committee decided to leave the decision to the entire commission.

An aide to Antonovich speculated later that the group did not make a recommendation because several of the committee members were absent, including the panel’s chairwoman, Jacki Bacharach, who also sits on the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council. Other county staff members suggested privately that the group declined to make a decision because the matter had become a political hot potato.