Board OKs Scaled-Back Transit Plan : Transportation: MTA approves program that slashes rail lines by half and provides a small expansion of bus system.

A scaled-back transportation plan that delivers a dose of hard fiscal reality to Los Angeles County’s dreams of entering the 21st Century with a vast network of new bus and rail lines was approved Wednesday by transit officials.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board approved the $72-billion, 20-year plan that left a crowd of bus riders, community activists and politicians bitterly disappointed because it cuts back on long-promised rail lines and provides for only a small expansion of the overburdened bus system.

According to the blueprint, the county will have about 95 miles of rail by the end of the second decade. The MTA had planned to build 225 miles of rail over three decades but was forced to cut back because of the recession.

The plan concentrates new rail construction on a handful of projects: a Downtown Los Angeles to Pasadena rail line and extension of the Downtown subway to the Westside, the Eastside and through the San Fernando Valley as far as the San Diego Freeway.

Several other proposed lines, including extensions of the Valley line to Warner Center and lines through the Crenshaw district, from Downtown Los Angeles to Burbank and Glendale, and from Pasadena to Azusa or Irwindale, will be given reconsideration should funds become available in another decade.

MTA Chief Executive Officer Franklin White said the plan will “bring our ambition in line with our capability.” After critics asked the board to delay a vote, he said there was “no point in waiting until we have a perfect plan. We never will.”

After watching board members “rushing to the trough” with a flurry of motions “to get our little bit for our area,” board member James Cragin introduced a motion--to extend the soon-to-be-opened Green Line to the Del Amo shopping center--and then he urged his colleagues to vote against it. “We’re a bunch of crazies up here,” he said.

The vote came after a contentious public hearing during which board members were jeered by the audience after limiting some speakers to one minute. “You won’t get my vote the next time you’re up for election,” one angry man said to Mayor Richard Riordan, who was chairing the meeting.

The plan was sharply criticized by bus rider advocates for providing for an increase of only 300 buses over the next two decades.