Project Is No Longer in Neutral

It’s possible that before bulldozers can finally begin Southern California’s most-delayed transportation project by extending the Long Beach Freeway, the American public will be able to choose two new presidents, today’s South Pasadena third-graders will be driving, and Mick Jagger will turn 62.

That’s because even though the federal government gave initial approval to the project last week, the rosiest projections call for a 2005 start date. And although there seemingly are no magic bullets left in opponents’ arsenals, persistent legal fighting, budgetary scrambling and political jockeying could delay the 6.2-mile route even longer.

Because the final fate of the freeway extension is decades down the road, no one knows for certain whether it will become a reality.

Still, for the first time in 32 years, momentum is on the side of the freeway.

Opponents for decades had counted on the federal government to scotch the project. That now seems unlikely.

The extension would connect the San Bernardino and Foothill freeways, running a concrete artery through the heart of South Pasadena and slicing through parts of Pasadena and the Eastside neighborhood of El Sereno. It could plow through 900 homes and uproot 6,000 trees.

Major hurdles to the project remain. The design mandated by the federal government is technically complicated and will be difficult to construct, although the California Department of Transportation has vowed to do it. Funding for the project, estimated at $1.4 billion even before the federal government added a host of new features, must come from the cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is having its own troubles building a subway.

Two lawsuits--one active, one imminent--may raise the cost further. And the fight is shifting from Washington to California as opponents quietly lobby legislators and key MTA bureaucrats to kill the project.

But proponents are especially confident after the federal decision last week.

“It may be a few years off yet, and the details of how it is going to get done need to be worked out,” said Pasadena Councilwoman Ann Marie Villicana, whose city supports the project. “Now at least . . . we know that the freeway will happen.”

Just don’t count on driving on it soon.

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After all, the extension has been postponed for decades by a barrage of legal and legislative challenges. Like traffic caught in rush hour, freeway construction moves glacially--especially when well-organized locals try to spike it.

What will happen in the coming months is clear.

Government officials say it is unlikely that anything will stop the project from being officially approved as early as January. A Washington-based advisory group on historic preservation must first evaluate the proposal. It can be overruled by a presidentially appointed panel expected to follow the government’s lead, those involved in the process said.

The long term is murkier.

Most of the money for the project, for example, will not be needed until the concrete is ready to be poured. When that time comes, in at least eight years, observers say, state politics may have changed or the MTA may be in a better position to fund the extension.

Certain to delay the project is the so-called Armageddon lawsuit that South Pasadena plans to file. Even the city’s attorney, Antonio Rossmann, says a victory in court would not be enough to permanently derail the extension, though it would delay it significantly.

The best strategy now, opponents say, is to try to change the minds of political leaders in the state who have pushed the freeway for several years.

“We must get political,” Rossmann said. “Remember, Jerry Brown nearly killed this freeway,” he added, in a reference to the then governor’s attempts to derail the project in the 1970s. “Another governor like him and a like-minded Legislature could end this freeway with one bill to delete the route.”

The current powers in Sacramento--Gov. Pete Wilson and the majority of both houses of the Legislature--support the freeway. Over the last months, however, South Pasadena leaders have quietly stepped up their lobbying of legislators.

Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), a longtime freeway opponent, wrote a letter to Vice President Al Gore, futilely trying to sway the federal government. South Pasadena leaders took Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante (D-Fresno) for a tour of the proposed route last week.

Legislators representing the west San Gabriel Valley have for decades had to oppose the freeway to win election, and now they will step up their lobbying efforts in Sacramento, officials said. South Pasadena leaders say they will also try to ensure that the next California governor is a freeway opponent.

Freeway proponents scoff at these moves, saying that if South Pasadena has not been able to turn the tide after 32 years of lobbying, the city of 24,000 should give up.

“They just need to get on board and help design this freeway rather than continue to stick their head in the sand,” Alhambra City Manager Julio Fuentes said. His city has pushed for the freeway for four decades, saying that its streets have been clogged by run-off traffic.

Alhambra is lobbying South Pasadena residents, trying to turn them against the elected leaders who have fought the road for four decades.

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Opponents also hold out hope that a transportation funding bill signed by Wilson last month will indirectly kill the freeway by shifting responsibility for its funding to the beleaguered MTA.

Previously the state determined how federal and state transit money was spent. Now local transportation agencies decide where 75% of that money goes. In Los Angeles County, the MTA controls the purse strings.

“Funding the [freeway extension] will be very difficult given the financial realities over here at the MTA and for the county as a whole,” said David Yale, the MTA’s director of capital projects and programming.

The federal government has been steadily slashing aid to the agency’s subway project, and other cuts and lost tax revenue have left the MTA $10 billion short. Although the freeway extension was included in the agency’s long-term plan in 1995, nobody knows whether money will be available down the road.

Opponents have been arguing that the MTA must drop the project. “We have talked to people at the MTA for months,” South Pasadena Councilman Harry Knapp said. “If the MTA board wants the freeway, they’re going to have to give up the Red Line or the Green Line.”

Yale said it will be difficult for the MTA to come up with money to fund the project in the near future. Caltrans insists that it can cover the costs of the initial design work. The largest bills come years in the future, when ground is broken.

“The costs are at the back end, when you build it,” Yale said. “The question now will be timing. A project of that magnitude is going to take a number of years to assemble a funding package, and once that funding package is assembled, it is going to take a number of years to construct it.”

Caltrans hopes to begin building in 2005. Yale said it is doubtful that MTA money would be available by then. But a new study by the Southern California Council of Governments, a regional planning agency that will evaluate the project every three years, shows that the MTA could pay for it by 2017, said the group’s executive director, Mark Pisano.

The MTA board has endorsed the extension. Whether it will pay for the extension into the next century while struggling to complete the subway is uncertain, though highway construction has historically been among the most popular transportation projects in California.

The Long Beach Freeway extension has always been the exception to the rule. Construction on the freeway began in 1951 and halted in 1965, when it reached the San Bernardino Freeway. South Pasadena residents repeatedly blocked plans to run the freeway through their city.

Alhambra fervently fought for the freeway. A 1973 South Pasadena lawsuit led to an injunction against further design of the freeway until its environmental impact was evaluated by state and eventually federal agencies.

In the next three decades, fighting the freeway became a preservationist cause celebre. The National Trust for Historic Preservation placed South Pasadena and El Sereno on its “Most Endangered Places” list.

In 1994, the communities moved to a second-tier list as the environmental assessment and fate of the freeway seemed bogged down in Washington bureaucracy. Then suddenly this fall, the Federal Highway Administration called representatives of all affected areas to Washington for a meeting. The federal officials presented a draft of their plan for the extension.

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On Thursday night, federal officials confirmed that after modifying the plan to meet concerns expressed by that meeting’s participants they were moving forward to support the extension of the freeway.

The most significant changes are in response to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed in 1995 on behalf of El Sereno residents, alleging that Caltrans did not give the largely Latino community the same environmental safeguards it granted wealthier South Pasadena and Pasadena.

The federal proposal calls for keeping 80% of the El Sereno leg of the freeway below street level and providing financial compensation for those moved by the construction. Angela Johnson-Meszoras, the attorney for the El Sereno plaintiffs, said that would not go far enough. Affordable housing must be provided for residents displaced by the freeway, she said.

“We were encouraged to see that it looks as if [the federal government] is taking our claim seriously,” she said. “The question, given our past dealings: How will we be assured that [Caltrans] will live up to their promises? There’s really nothing we can do except wait and see.”

Johnson-Meszoras said that if the federal government finalizes its approval, settling her clients’ lawsuit will become more difficult.

But federal officials said that little will stop final approval. And as the battle shifts back to the Golden State, they say freeway opponents should join community boards that will advise Caltrans on the road’s design.

“They may not desire to have a freeway,” said one federal official speaking on condition of anonymity, “but it would be best if they were part of the process.”

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NEXT STEPS Long Beach Freeway Extension Before construction can begin on the Long Beach Freeway extension, a number of steps must be taken:

* Within six weeks, the latest recommendation will be reviewed by a federal historic preservation group.

* The Federal Highway Administration expects to sign the final decision in January, lifting a 1973 court injunction and clearing the way for design work to proceed.

* South Pasadena has 30 days to file a lawsuit to block the freeway. A court battle could take two years or more.

* Most surface street improvements must be finished by 1999.

* The California Department of Transportation must complete a freeway design with input from neighborhood groups.

* When most design work is finished, the federal government will reevaluate the project.

* If funding is available, Caltrans can acquire property along the route and begin construction.

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Proposed Route

Federal Officials have endorsed completion of the long-delayed 6.2-mile extension of the Long Beach Freeway through South Pasadena, the Eastside and parts of Pasadena.