Cost Gap Between Rail Plans Narrowed : Transportation: Elevated line would still be $19 million cheaper than subway, according to cost analysis.

Building a subway across the San Fernando Valley would be far less expensive than originally estimated, but an elevated railway above the Ventura Freeway would still be at least $19 million cheaper, according to a cost-comparison analysis released Friday.

The long-awaited report narrowed--but did not eliminate--the price advantage that a freeway elevated line would have over a subway running 15 miles east and west through the center of the Valley, two different approaches that have been angrily debated for more than five years.

In the document, analysts conclude that new technology, lower construction costs and alternate station designs would reduce the cost of a subway system by more than $750 million from the original price tage of $3.03 billion.

At the same time, alternative construction techniques would also cut the cost of the elevated freeway line, saving about $340 million. The freeway route would therefore cost $2.25 billion, compared to about $2.27 billion for the underground system.

The minimum difference--$19 million--was alternately trumpeted as significant and dismissed as trivial Friday as both sides in the debate geared up for an intense lobbying campaign that is expected to culminate in a showdown next month before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

“That is not a big difference. It’s not the $400-million (difference) or the other numbers that were thrown around,” county Supervisor Ed Edelman said, referring to projections made by transit planners three years ago. “This makes the two lines virtually . . . identical in terms of cost,” said Edelman, a supporter of the subway system, which would parallel Chandler and Burbank boulevards.

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Disagreement came from fellow Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who wants to build an elevated system above the Ventura Freeway median--often called a monorail by supporters, although the design has not been agreed on.

“I am very glad to see that the monorail’s cost savings have been verified by this independent report,” said Antonovich, who in the past has asserted that cost alone would decide the issue for the MTA, which had a $300-million budget deficit this year.

In 1990, transit officials tapped the subway as the preferred mode, envisioning a seamless ride from downtown Los Angeles to Warner Center along the Metro Rail Red Line.

But the decision was reversed two years later after analysts estimated that the cost of an underground route would exceed the elevated freeway alternative by $442 million.

Since then, officials have put off a final decision pending further studies, the most important of which was the independent cost comparison released Friday.

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The report said that recessionary drops in real estate prices and in construction costs have pushed down the price of both options.

For the Red Line extension, substantial savings could also be achieved by building open-trench rather than traditional enclosed stations, which would boost the subway cost to $175 million more than an elevated freeway line.

Antonovich said such open-air stations would break the MTA’s promise to local residents to build enclosed stations.

But Jim Mahfet, one of the chairmen of a coalition of homeowner and business groups that favor the subway, said he would accept the open-trench idea.

“The issue isn’t technology. The issue is the route,” Mahfet said. He contends that more traffic would be diverted from the Ventura Freeway and its surrounding area by running a rail line along Burbank and Chandler boulevards.

He criticized the freeway-median route, saying residents would be reluctant to use it if they have to get off the train at the eastern terminus and somehow get to the already planned North Hollywood Red Line station to board a different train to Downtown.

However, supporters of the elevated line note that it would boast 15 stations, compared to the subway’s 10, and would be closer to heavily traveled Ventura Boulevard.

“You’re going to cater to more people,” said Bill Korek of the Citizens Committee for Monorail.

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The cost-comparison report said a new Caltrans mandate that the MTA pay to widen the freeway by 34 feet to make room for the elevated railway would cost $240 million. But the added cost would be more than compensated by adopting different building techniques, such as performing some construction and assembly off-site, the report said.

All figures are in 1998 dollars.

The MTA Board of Directors was originally due to decide the Valley rail issue this month. But the potential absence of key figures in the debate, including Antonovich, means that the question will probably be taken up at next month’s meeting.

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The controversy has already given rise to political power plays between Edelman and Antonovich, the officials most outspoken on the issue. In June, Antonovich tried to muscle Edelman out of his turn to assume the chairmanship of the MTA board, trying to take the job himself. Antonovich argued that continuity would be better served by electing him over Edelman, who is scheduled to retire in December.

The MTA chairman has the power to control the amount of time accorded each side in the debate before the board and can determine whether a vote is taken quickly or delayed.

In the end, the MTA board elected Edelman as its chairman, but in a compromise picked Antonovich to serve out the remainder of the yearlong term after Edelman’s retirement.