New Agency’s Decision on Elevated Rail Still a Year Off : Transportation: Additional studies are expected to resolve unanswered questions about the cost and feasibility of two rival proposals.

The county’s new Metropolitan Transportation Authority will not make a final decision on a controversial proposal to build an elevated rail line over the Ventura Freeway for at least a year, despite earlier predictions that the decision would be made this month, officials said Wednesday.

Opponents of the elevated line said they will take advantage of the delay to lobby members of the new agency to support a rival plan for a mostly subway line that would parallel Burbank and Chandler boulevards.

Other tactics under study are a lawsuit requiring new environmental studies and state legislation that would raise safety standards, making the elevated line more expensive to build.

The MTA inherited the much-debated issue of a mass transit route in the San Fernando Valley after the county’s two feuding transportation agencies--the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission and the Southern California Rapid Transit District--merged in January to form the new super agency.

Before disbanding, the Transportation Commission voted in December to support construction of the elevated freeway line. The commission agreed later that the MTA would have the final say on the matter after additional engineering studies are completed on both proposed alignments.

At the time, Supervisor Mike Antonovich, then-chairman of the Transportation Commission, said he expected the MTA to take up the matter in March.

But Norm Jester, MTA project manager, said Tuesday that the additional studies will take at least 12 months to complete. But he said the studies will not delay the completion date of the Valley rail line.

The additional studies are expected to resolve several unanswered questions about the cost and feasibility of the rival proposals.

“It would make sense that they wait for the (studies),” said Joel Bellman, an aide to Supervisor Ed Edelman, a member of the MTA’s governing board. “Why would you work on a bunch of tests if you are going to jump the gun and make a decision?”

The elevated line would stretch 16 miles along the median of the Ventura Freeway between Woodland Hills to Universal City, where it would connect to the Metro Rail Red Line subway to downtown Los Angeles. The rival plan would be a mostly underground line connecting with the Red Line in North Hollywood and extending 14 miles to its terminus in Woodlands Hills.

A report by an independent consultant has concluded that the elevated line would be cheaper to build and operate. It would cost $2.24 billion to construct, compared to $2.79 billion for the Burbank-Chandler subway route, according to the report. In addition, the elevated line would cost $13 million less to operate each year and would generate about 16% more in passenger revenue, the report said.

Gerald Silver, an Encino resident and member of a coalition of homeowners, elected officials and business groups opposed to the elevated freeway line, said members of the coalition will meet with new MTA members to push for the subway.

But he said elected officials in the group are also considering drafting legislation that would impose new safety standards on any freeway line, requiring an increased setback between the elevated rails and freeway traffic. Such a requirement may require a widening of the freeway, drastically increasing the cost of the project.

Homeowners are also considering filing a class-action lawsuit seeking additional stringent environmental studies before the elevated line could be built, Silver said.

Silver said he is optimistic that the group’s strategy will pay off.

“There is a broad-based consensus that an elevated train will not be built on that freeway,” he said.

But Don Schultz, president of Van Nuys Homeowners Assn. and supporter of the freeway line, said he and others will also lobby new MTA board members.

He said he is not worried that the delay will open the door for opponents of the freeway line.

“They can’t sway them with reason or common sense because we have the numbers on our side,” he said, referring to the lower cost for the freeway line.