$1.2-Billion Grant to Clear Way for Red Line’s Third Segment : Transit: Transportation Secretary Pena will announce federal backing today. The 11.6-mile subway extension will serve North Hollywood, East L.A. and the Mid-City area.

Transportation Secretary Federico F. Pena will formally award more than $1 billion in federal grants today to extend the city’s first modern subway to North Hollywood, East Los Angeles and the Mid-City area.

Citing concerns about the region’s air pollution and a desire to stimulate economic development, Pena gave his approval to the transit endeavor blasted as a boondoggle by critics and lauded as a lifeline by proponents.

“We thought it was a good project,” said Pena in an interview Thursday. “It’s part of a total system.”

Pena launched a two-day visit to Southern California on Thursday with a speech to traffic engineers in Costa Mesa, a tour of a Burbank-based electric car research center, and a reception for Mayor Tom Bradley. This morning, Pena is scheduled to announce the $1.23-billion federal grant that will cover about half the expected $2.4-billion price tag of the subway’s third segment, which is about $300 million more than preliminary estimates. Local funds will cover the rest.

Although transit officials have not yet selected the exact route, this 11.6-mile portion of the Red Line subway contains three branches that will lead to North Hollywood, Los Angeles’ Eastside and the Mid-City area.

The federal grant reflects President Clinton’s commitment to the subway project, according to the Department of Transportation. Pena has the authority to delay the grant--earmarked last year by Congress for the subway project--but chose not to. For 18 months, former President Ronald Reagan effectively stalled the flow of federal dollars to the Red Line, a project he said has “dubious merit.”

Pena acknowledged that local transportation officials have come under fire for creating a two-tiered transit system in Los Angeles--one that supplies crowded, crime-prone buses to inner-city residents while offering new trains to mostly wealthy suburbanites. But he said he hoped to steer clear of that controversy.

“I would not want to be in the position of playing referee,” he said. “I continue to have great hope that local representatives will be able to make sure all the community is served.”

In January, transit officials unveiled the first leg of what is destined to be a $5.4-billion, 21.7-mile subway scheduled to be completed in 2000. About 13,000 passengers a day ride the first leg of the subway, which travels to five stations along the route stretching between MacArthur Park and Union Station.

The second, 6.7-mile segment runs through the Mid-Wilshire district and will open in two phases, in 1996 and 1998.

It is the subway’s third segment, its proponents say, that will offer the most significant contribution. In 1991, at the urging of then-Rep. Edward R. Roybal and Rep. Julian C. Dixon, transit officials decided that the subway routes should serve more of the region’s Latino and African-American communities. So transit planners designed a route that included stations at Olympic-Crenshaw and Pico-San Vicente, as well as accelerating planning for an Eastside line.

“What is so historic about Segment 3 is that it brings together diverse communities from West Los Angeles, East Los Angeles, and the Valley through extensions of the subway,” said Dixon, a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Roybal said: “The real growth of the county has been east but not west. It will mean a great deal to the working person, the young person, the young people with children to be able to come downtown to work and leave the car at home.”

Transportation officials are considering three possible routes for the three-mile East L.A. line that is expected to host at least two stations. The line will start at Union Station and extend along Brooklyn Avenue, 1st Street or Whittier Boulevard. The final selection of a route will be made by June 26.

In a speech to the 45th California Transportation Symposium at the Red Lion Inn in Costa Mesa, Pena said he strongly supports a high-speed rail line between San Diego and Los Angeles that would traverse Orange County.

The Clinton Administration is asking Congress for $1.3 billion for high-speed rail research. Last year, federal officials picked California’s San Diego-Los Angeles-San Joaquin Valley corridor as one of five high-speed rail corridors in the country to receive federal research dollars, but declined to provide specifics.

Pena and the Clinton Administration have backed off initial plans to spend huge sums on new technology, such as magnetically levitated and propelled trains, in favor of getting today’s 90 m.p.h. trains up to 125 m.p.h.

But Pena said $300 million of the proposed $1.3 billion expenditure on high-speed rail would be devoted to technology research, which “has significance for defense firms” in Southern California and elsewhere that are trying to switch to non-military projects.

During his visit Thursday, Pena also praised Orange County’s toll road projects, two of which are under way, as examples of public-private partnerships--the theme of the weeklong transportation conference.

“There’s a future for toll roads outside of Orange County,” Pena said.