Cuts Proposed for Pasadena Rail Project : Transit: Panel says scaling back Blue Line stations, eliminating one depot and revising estimates for design work could save $175 million.

Transit officials could save $175 million and open the financially troubled Pasadena Blue Line three years early by scaling back station plans, eliminating one depot and revising bloated estimates for design work and other expenses, according to a report to be released today.

The report, commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and culled from documents and interviews with agency staff, has been anxiously awaited because of uncertainty about the planned 13.6-mile line between Downtown Los Angeles and east Pasadena. Originally set to open in 1997 at a cost of $841 million, the project has had its inauguration date pushed back five years and its price tag raised to nearly $1 billion in the MTA’s latest long-range plan.

Because of those changes, Blue Line supporters have worried that the project could be delayed further or shelved, leaving the gridlocked San Gabriel Valley without a light-rail corridor at a time when extensions of the controversial Los Angeles subway are going forward. Pleased with the recommendations, one MTA board member said the report by outside experts could be a cost-trimming guide for other agency endeavors.

“Makes you wonder about the rest of the lines,” said the official, who asked to remain anonymous.

Although they urged more extensive study, members of the peer review panel outlined 15 ways to trim Blue Line expenses and stop construction delays. The postponements are costing taxpayers $2 million per month, the panel said.

The MTA convened the ad hoc panel of transit experts in March from around North America to scrutinize ways to cut costs after the transportation agency announced that it would drastically cut its mass-transit blueprints for the Southland.

Chief among the goals was shrinking the Pasadena line’s cost of $73 million per mile, a figure that makes the trolley at least twice as expensive as comparable systems in Santa Clara, Calif.; Denver, and St. Louis.

“This (cost) is without precedent in the industry and does not appear to be warranted by the complexity of the project,” wrote the panel, which included transit experts from New Jersey, Utah, Toronto and Vancouver.

Giving each station a standard design instead of a tailor-made look and shrinking the platform size could reduce costs by $25 million, the panel said.

The panel also suggested eliminating the $4.5-million Lake Avenue station because of “unacceptable noise levels” expected to buffet passengers from nearby Foothill Freeway traffic. Such a cut is likely to be opposed by Pasadena officials.

An additional $20 million could be pared by moving the line’s maintenance yard from a site near the Los Angeles River bridge to the line’s eastern terminus, the panel added. Making cities pay a higher share for street and utility improvements, while rethinking outlays for track work, power substations and radios, could reap an additional $35 million.

But by far the biggest savings--an estimated $100 million--would come from slashing design costs and extra funds earmarked for unexpected construction problems, the experts said. Design expenses that already have been incurred, they added, have been increased by an MTA construction style that encourages too many subcontracts, overlapping management and last-minute redesigns.

The project broke ground last spring.