Revival of Carpool Lane Bill Promised

A bill to pave the way for construction of a 10-mile stretch of carpool lane on the San Diego Freeway in Los Angeles will be resurrected in January when the Legislature reconvenes, several officials said Friday.

On Thursday night, legislators handed Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa a setback when the Senate recessed before voting on a bill that would have sped up construction on the more than $500-million project.

The lane would be on the freeway’s northbound side, from the Santa Monica Freeway to the Ventura Freeway. The southbound side already has a carpool lane.

With nearly four months before the Legislature reconvenes, Villaraigosa and Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, the City Council’s transportation committee chairwoman, have time to continue to lobby lawmakers.

However, Greuel warned Friday that time was not a luxury. “We have $130 million from the federal government that we’ll lose if construction on this doesn’t begin by 2009,” she said. “There is so much pre-construction to be done, and it needs to start now.”

Janelle Erickson, a press secretary for Villaraigosa, said the mayor was optimistic that the Senate would act on the bill in January.

Still, the delay denied the mayor an important accomplishment in his first 100 days in office -- a time frame commonly cited in evaluating elected officials’ achievements.

In Sacramento, finger-pointing for the failure to finalize the bill was underway.

A spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) blamed the Assembly, which passed the bill Thursday, for acting too late.

“If the speaker [of the Assembly] wanted the bill, he would have sent it over in time,” said Alicia Dlugosh, press secretary for Perata. She also said the Assembly was sitting on other bills that senators wanted considered.

But Vince Duffy, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles), said it was the Senate that dropped the ball. “We did our job and got to the finish line, and all of a sudden the Senate had shut down,” Duffy said.

Perata’s and Nunez’s aides said the lawmakers would revive the issue in January.

Villaraigosa and Greuel have been pushing for the state to allow the project to proceed through a “design-build” process that speeds construction, allowing the carpool lane to be designed and built by the same contractor.

That concept is controversial.

The union representing Caltrans engineers has raised concerns that it could cost jobs because it would reduce the state agency’s role.

And some business interests are pushing for a broader bill that would adopt “design-build” as the standard for many public works projects to speed them up -- a concept opposed by unions.