710 Freeway Extension Route Gets State OK : Roads: Key decision puts fate of controversial 6.2-mile link in federal government’s hands. South Pasadena officials say they will continue to fight the project.

Stalled more than 40 years, the Long Beach Freeway extension got a critical jump-start Wednesday when the California Transportation Commission gave final state approval to a route for the eight-lane highway through historic South Pasadena.

The project’s fate now rests largely with the Federal Highway Administration, which also must approve the 6.2-mile route through Los Angeles, South Pasadena and Pasadena.

The extension--linking the San Bernardino and Foothill freeways--has spawned heated controversy because it would split South Pasadena in half, threaten 987 homes along the route and destroy more than 6,000 trees. It would plow through five historic districts and threaten turn-of-the-century homes, including Queen Anne-style homes and Victorian farmhouses.

State officials say they will try to move the historic homes and buildings to new sites or temporarily relocate them during construction.

For decades, tiny South Pasadena, with 3.5 square miles and 24,000 residents, has held off the extension with a barrage of legal and legislative challenges. On Wednesday, city officials promised more challenges--and downplayed the significance of the commission’s action, saying that major hurdles remain before construction can begin.

But state officials and freeway proponents said South Pasadena’s only real hope of staving off construction is a reprieve from the federal government.

Assuming that funding comes through, state officials said, construction on the $670-million project could start as early as 2005 and finish by 2010.

“This is a major, major milestone,” said Jerry B. Baxter, California Department of Transportation district director for the southern part of the state. “In my mind, the only thing that’s holding this project back is funding. . . . (South Pasadena) has run out of options as far as the (state) goes.”

South Pasadena officials, however, said they were not giving up.

“It’s decades away from completion,” said City Manager Kenneth Farfsing. “I think you’re looking at 10 years of litigation after the federal (decision).”

Alhambra officials and other pro-freeway forces hailed Wednesday’s decision, saying the extension will take about 100,000 cars off city streets each day, create 30,000 jobs and close the last major gap in the county’s freeway system. The freeway starts in Long Beach and ends slightly north of the San Bernardino Freeway.

“I’m thrilled to death with today’s decision, having fought for this for more than three decades,” said Alhambra Councilman Talmage V. Burke, a 42-year council veteran.

The last link of the Long Beach Freeway has been controversial since before the start of the freeway’s construction in 1951, and there has been no construction on it since 1965 because of protests.

Over the years, the transportation commission has weighed and rejected dozens of alternative routes. Each lawsuit, environmental study and advisory committee report has prompted new debate.

But Wednesday’s action gave the project unprecedented momentum--the commission never before had approved the extension’s environmental impact report, a crucial step in the state process.

Attorney Antonio Rossman, who represents South Pasadena, said the city will consider filing suit against the commission, challenging its approval on complex procedural grounds.

The vote “may be of momentary political significance,” Rossman said. “But what counts in the long run is whether the federal government will continue, as they have in the past 30 years, to disapprove what the commission proposes . . . and whether this commission and the federal government will put their money where their mouth is.”

Federal officials probably will not decide the matter until next year, said Tony Kane, associate administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. The highway administration will not take action until studies on freeway alternatives and historic preservation efforts are complete, he said.

South Pasadena is pushing a “low-build alternative” to the freeway extension--a $110-million project of improvements to local streets, use of high-tech devices to speed traffic flow and the expansion of public transit.

The freeway furor has turned into a national cause celebre for environmentalists and preservationists. For five years, the National Trust for Historic Preservation had put South Pasadena, Pasadena and Los Angeles’ El Sereno neighborhood on its “Most Endangered Historic Places” list.

In June, however, the areas were moved to a list of less-endangered, but still threatened places--because trust officials believed the freeway extension faced a rocky future.

Tawa reported from Sacramento, Winton from the San Gabriel Valley.