Pasadena Transportation

Pasadena's Transportation Commission has grave concerns with Senate Bill 2111 now before Gov. Deukmejian for approval or veto. This bill arbitrarily allocates 15% of Los Angeles County's rail transit funds to the San Fernando Valley for the eventual construction of light or heavy rail. This bill removes from the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission the authority to decide how best to allocate limited rail transit resources in our region. It therefore removes from that same agency the ability to fund those lines for which there is strong community support and strong traffic demands.

The recent report (Times, Jan. 30) on the California Transportation Department by the "Little Hoover Commission" substantiates the statements we have issued over many years. The report from the Hoover Commission states that the California Transportation program is antiquated, disorganized and wasteful and not likely to improve soon because Caltrans is wedded to a history as the state's highway department and cannot adapt to the new ideas such as mass transit and locally funded highway projects.

The California Transportation Commission approved $48.5 million Thursday to help keep the downtown Los Angeles-to-Pasadena trolley line on schedule, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said. "This money allows us to finish work that has already begun," said MTA Board Chairman Larry Zarian. "The actual date for completion of the Pasadena Blue Line still has to be determined by the board, but this is an important step toward keeping the project on schedule and within budget."

Moving from pencil to pavement, the staff of the California Transportation Commission has recommended approval of a crucial first step in the controversial extension of the Long Beach Freeway through South Pasadena. Despite bitter objections from local officials and South Pasadena residents, transportation officials recommended that the commission earmark $4.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board gave final approval Wednesday to a streamlined design for the Blue Line, casting in concrete plans for the 13.7-mile light-rail line from Los Angeles to eastern Pasadena expected to open in 2001.

Re "Rail Critics Are Right--and Wrong," Commentary, Dec. 26: Rick Cole, a former mayor of Pasadena, and Katherine Perez, a member of Pasadena's Transportation Advisory Commission, apparently "forgot" to mention the prime reason why the Blue Line extension into their fair city is costing the taxpayers so much money. Could it possibly have something to do with Pasadena's insistence that the former Santa Fe rail line linking Pasadena with Los Angeles be converted from a "heavy" rail line (one that could have easily accommodated MetroLink trains two or three years ago)

A new transportation management association serving the Anaheim Canyon Business Center will try to devise ways to reduce traffic congestion and improve customer access to local businesses. The City Council approved creation of the association Tuesday by a unanimous vote. Funding will be provided by a $100,000 grant Anaheim received from the Orange County Transportation Authority.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater got a firsthand look Wednesday at the level of emotion in South Pasadena over his department's plans to extend the Long Beach Freeway through the city, as more than 100 opponents rallied outside a downtown Los Angeles fund-raiser he attended. The Union Station protest was a far cry from the quiet lobbying in Washington that has characterized the decades-long freeway fight of late, before Slater's department green-lighted the 6.

Cutbacks in government services may be widespread these days, but Pasadena is using a free bus service to give more of its residents a free ride. Here in the land where the car is king, Pasadena has connected neighborhoods at its northwest corner to the Hastings Ranch area near its eastern border with service that began in July. The city hopes money it spends for the free service will offset gaps in the regional bus system and cut traffic and air pollution in one of the nation's smoggiest areas.

Throwing up another barrier to the long-delayed Long Beach Freeway extension, civil rights and environmental groups filed a complaint Tuesday alleging that the project discriminates against Latino residents. The complaint, filed with the federal government, alleges that the mostly poor Latino residents of the El Sereno district are denied the same protections from freeway noise and other effects that are afforded to predominantly white, more upscale residents of Pasadena and South Pasadena.