Money the Deciding Factor in Rail Vote : Transit: The panel ignored Valley politics and backed an elevated Ventura Freeway line because it would be up to $1 billion cheaper.

Three years of politicking to sway a county transportation panel’s vote on a passenger rail line in the San Fernando Valley--including an advisory vote and thousands of dollars spent on mailers, billboards and radio commercials--was all for nothing.

In the end, money was the deciding factor, according to those who made the decision.

They picked an elevated rail line over the Ventura Freeway, they said Thursday, because it was the cheaper alternative, ignoring the political war that surrounded the debate. The elevated freeway line from Universal City to Woodland Hills would be $440 million to $1 billion cheaper than a mostly underground line from North Hollywood to Woodland Hills parallel to Burbank and Chandler boulevards.

For those on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission who supported the freeway line Wednesday in a 6-3 vote, the potential savings were critical.

“The main factor was the cost differential,” said Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor Harold Croyts, who voted for the freeway line as an alternate for Commissioner Jacki Bacharach. “I felt, when you are talking between $400 million and $1 billion savings, that is money that could pay for another line somewhere.”

The elevated line will cost $2.59 billion, and the rival Burbank-Chandler line would cost $3.03 billion, according to county estimates. But the cost savings are even greater under proposals submitted last month by two construction consortiums who offered to build the elevated freeway line for as little as $1.86 billion as part of a longer high-speed line connecting Los Angeles International Airport and Palmdale.

“When you are talking about $400 million to $1 billion capital cost, that is a determining factor,” said Gerry Hertzberg, who voted for the freeway line as an alternate for Supervisor Gloria Molina. “That is not a small chunk of change.”

In the Valley, the route decision has been a topic of heated debate between warring factions of homeowners and business organizations, which have spent many hours and thousands of dollars to sway the commission’s vote.

Several commissioners said they also favored the freeway line because they feared that the subway portion of the Burbank-Chandler project would accumulate the type of cost overruns they experienced in building the first segment of the Metro Red Line subway. Poor soil conditions, bad designs and unrealistic schedules added $200 million to the expected $1.25-billion cost of the Red Line segment between Union Station and MacArthur Park.

Dennis Morefield, a spokesman for Supervisor Deane Dana, whose alternate on the commission voted for the freeway line, said Dana has opposed underground construction whenever possible. The Red Line cost overruns “served as an example of why we feel you can do the freeway project with less cost,” Morefield said.

The decision Wednesday was seen as a victory for county Supervisor Mike Antonovich, chairman of the commission. For years, Antonovich has backed the idea of putting a low-noise monorail along the freeway median, bucking a formidable array of political and neighborhood interests who backed the rival Burbank-Chandler line.

Antonovich was instrumental in putting an advisory referendum on the 1990 ballot, winning a round when 48% of the voters backed a monorail on the freeway and only 10% backed a subway--half as many as those who wanted no rail line at all.

The commission’s decision represents a “substantial victory for all the Valley,” Antonovich spokesman Dawson Oppenheimer said Thursday. “For four or five years, Mike has been swimming upstream against everyone. This is one case where right prevailed over might,” Oppenheimer said.

But even Oppenheimer acknowledged that in the end the cost difference played a bigger role in the vote than did the efforts of his boss.

Hertzberg agreed. “The facts spoke for themselves,” he said. “If he didn’t have the facts on his side, he would not have won.”

But opponents of the freeway line still argue that cost should not be the deciding factor. They argue that the system’s ability to move passengers with the least impact on adjacent neighborhoods should be paramount.

Gerald A. Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino and longtime opponent of the freeway route, said motorists driving to its stations will create traffic problems on adjacent streets. “Unfortunately, I don’t think it will move more people along this corridor because of the congestion at the stations,” he said.

Opponents of the freeway line have also argued that its cost is still uncertain because the project has not been designed.

“Any price quoted now is fantasy land,” Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus said. “We have no idea what it’ll cost.”

Bill Jasper, president of the Encino Property Owners Assn., pledged that he and other supporters of the Burbank-Chandler line will continue working to reverse the commission’s decision. “We’re going to see to it that a monorail is never put in place,” Jasper vowed.

Staff writer John Schwada contributed to this story.