MTA Acts to Shelve Valley Rail Line : Transit: Agency votes to have project removed from funding priority in favor of proposals that could be started sooner.

Citing revenue shortages and construction delays, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted Wednesday to recommend that a rail line for the San Fernando Valley be removed from a list of state funding priorities and replaced with a dozen other projects from Pasadena to Marina del Rey.

The board did set aside $51 million in local transportation dollars to begin engineering studies on the Valley line in order to avoid delaying the planned start of construction in 2003.

The only “no” vote came from Bob Abernethy, an alternate MTA member representing Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who represents large portions of the Valley.

After the vote, Yaroslavsky said he opposes the decision to take the project off the funding list because he fears that it may not be restored in the future or future transit money may not be available to build the line.

But MTA staff and others, including Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, said they are trying to obtain a guarantee from state transportation officials that the project will be added to the list in 1998 and will be built on schedule.

Despite the concerns raised by Yaroslavsky, MTA staffers said state officials are predicting an increase in transportation money in 1998 due to an improvement in the economy. Much of the MTA transit money comes from two half-cent sales-tax increases approved by voters.

MTA officials also said the state is expected to finish funding a backlog of transit projects and should have additional money for new projects such as the Valley line.

As currently proposed, the $2.2-billion Valley subway would connect with the Red Line subway in North Hollywood and end in Woodland Hills, running parallel to Burbank and Chandler boulevards. The project has been sought for years as a partial solution to impending traffic gridlock.

The state requires that the list, known as the State Transportation Improvement Program, only include projects that can be built within the next seven years.

Because the MTA does not have its share of the necessary funding to begin building the Valley line before 2003, MTA staff recommended that it be replaced with 12 projects that can be built within the next seven years.

Those projects include a light rail line between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena, a subway from Hollywood to North Hollywood, several carpool lanes and an access route to the proposed Marina del Rey offices of DreamWorks SKG, formed by the union of entertainment giants Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen.

State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) and other transit activists who support increased funding for bus lines, decried the MTA vote, saying the $51 million set aside for Valley engineering studies should be used to buy more buses.

“DreamWorks is still a dream,” Hayden said.

Constance Rice, an attorney representing a group that is suing the MTA to force more spending on buses, said the decision “will be Exhibit A in how you run a two-tier transportation system.”