A LOOK AHEAD * MTA officials say a bill to create a separate agency to complete the Blue Line would affect transportation plans across the Southland, but critics welcome the vision of . . . Rail Supporters Giving a Push to Stalled Pasadena Project

When the Metropolitan Transportation Authority stopped work on a rail line between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena, the project’s supporters did not go away quietly.

They turned to state Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), who introduced a bill to take the project away from the MTA and create the Pasadena Metro Blue Line Construction Authority to build the trolley-like line, designed to provide relief on the crowded Pasadena Freeway.

Then they got influential Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) and state Sen. Richard G. Polanco (D-Los Angeles), whose districts would be served by the line, to support the measure.

The bill was facing a tough hearing today before the Assembly Transportation Committee, but project supporters went to work on the concerns of committee Chairman Kevin Murray (D-Los Angeles). Last week, Murray predicted that the bill--which has cleared the Senate--will pass his committee. And, the legislation continues to move as fast as supporters hope the trains someday will run.

Murray had expressed concern about how the bill could affect funding for other transportation projects in Los Angeles County, including a busway he has sought for Exposition Boulevard through his Los Angeles district. But he said that changes he sought in the legislation now assure him of an opportunity to review the MTA’s plan, which is due by the end of the year, for improving public transit throughout the county before work proceeds on the Pasadena line. Presumably, the busway would be part of that plan.

Even if the Pasadena project’s supporters succeed in the political arena, a tougher financial hurdle remains--how to close a $259-million shortfall in the Pasadena line’s $800-million construction budget.

Some MTA officials worry that the legislation could worsen the transit authority’s financial troubles. The bill requires the MTA to shift about $350 million to the new agency--even if the new entity has no plan for closing the shortfall.

“This is exactly what got the agency into the mess we’re in,” county supervisor and MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky said during a recent meeting. “If [MTA chief] Julian Burke didn’t feel the MTA had the financial wherewithal to meet all of its obligations and commence building this line in six years, how are we going to manage if a chunk of dough is siphoned off to commence construction of this in two years?”

Project supporters say that the money that would go to the new agency was previously committed to the Pasadena line anyway. And, they say, an independent authority working without the MTA’s other obligations can seek ways to cut costs and raise money to close the shortfall, possibly from private investors and the sale of development rights along the route. They say that they have already identified $100 million in potential savings.

Critics say that the legislation would take money the MTA might need to comply with court-ordered bus improvements or to complete construction of the Los Angeles subway. The new agency, they say, is simply the MTA by another name, pursuing a project that it cannot afford at this time.

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MTA board member James Cragin noted that the bill to create a separate agency to build the Pasadena line comes amid efforts to break up the MTA and give the San Fernando Valley and other regions greater say over bus operations and transportation planning. “What these people are doing is they’re creating a Yugoslavia, “ Cragin said.

Critics of the bill say that it could lead other communities to set up their own rail-building agencies, “spelling the end of the MTA” and its mission to plan a regional transportation system.

The legislation points to the persistent efforts that Blue Line supporters have made to keep the project on track. They have hired their own consultants to find ways to cut costs and packed MTA meetings with supporters. They even have tested horns to ease public concerns over the noise from future trains.

The MTA planned to use horns similar to those used to “scare cows off the track” a quarter-mile down the track, said a Pasadena official. Because Pasadena has no cows, city officials convinced the MTA to use quieter horns.

The MTA has already spent more than $200 million on the Pasadena line, the furthest along of three rail projects mothballed in January because of a lack of funds. The right of way has been purchased. Rail bought for the line is in storage. And a building stands in Pasadena with a hole through its center for a future train station; a sign on the property reads, “Tell MTA to Complete the Job.”

“The communities that want [the rail line] and have worked so hard for it should be given a chance to build it,” said David Green, owner of the Holly Street Village Apartments, the affected building.

The 13.6-mile light-rail line would run from Union Station through Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, South Pasadena, Old Pasadena and down the center of the Foothill Freeway to eastern Pasadena.

“The Pasadena Freeway is not something you want to have to do if you can possibly find another way,” said Cynthia Kurtz, Pasadena’s acting city manager. “Public transit is a real alternative and not just to people who don’t have cars. Buses don’t work because they use the same freeway as cars do.”

Project supporters say that if the authority is created, the long-promised line could open in early 2003, possibly earlier. (It’s called the Blue Line, even though passengers would need to transfer to the subway to reach the other Blue Line, which runs between downtown Los Angeles and Long Beach.)

MTA officials have said privately that the Pasadena line is the rail project most likely to be built next if funding becomes available, but they cannot say when. In seeking to take matters into their own hands, Pasadena officials are tired of waiting for a line that was supposed to be open by now.

The new authority’s five-member board--made up of a representative from the cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena and South Pasadena, the MTA and San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments--presumably would have less political infighting than the MTA because its members would be pursuing a common political goal.

Schiff said his bill does not seek to take money away from any other project but simply to shift money previously promised for the Pasadena line to the new agency.

He added that if the new agency can build the line “better, faster and cheaper,” it will enhance Los Angeles’ reputation to deliver on mass transit projects.

MTA officials, however, are concerned about who will pay for operation of the line once it is built. “If they’re not going to operate it, they can cut corners and build a shoddy line and the responsibility for fixing it will be the MTA’s,” Yaroslavsky said.

Some MTA officials have argued that the legislation should allow the transit authority to create the new agency rather than force it on the MTA. But Schiff said that if he did that, “they’re likely to do what they’re doing now, which is nothing.”

Schiff said the MTA must keep its promise to communities that have invested millions of dollars to prepare for the line.

“The MTA has a responsibility to those communities [and] not say, ‘Even though you can identify a better way to do it, we’re got going to let you do it because we might want the money for something else,” Schiff said. ‘

‘That’s just not acceptable.”

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Pasadena Light Rail

Pasadena officials may take over the stalled Metropolitan Transportation Authority plan for a 13.6-mile light-rail line from downtown Los Angeles to Pasadena.