EAST-SIDERS, VALLEY FIGHT FOR NEXT LINE : WAR OF WORDS ESCALATES IN STRUGGLE OVER WHO'S FIRST IN MTA PROJECTS.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

Two days after the MTA board bowed to congressional pressure and put an east-side subway project on its Washington wish list, east-side members of Congress pushed for further gains at the expense of the Valley and the Mid-Wilshire area.

Valley congressmen vowed, however, to work with the rest of Los Angeles County's delegation to keep the East-West San Fernando Valley Rail line first in priority, even as they tried to cool the war of words some feared may kill all federal funding for the area.

U.S. Reps. Matthew Martinez, Lucille Roybal-Allard and Esteban Torres all said Friday they believe a second phase of the Metro Red Line's east-side extension should be built before the east-west line or a Mid-City extension of the Red Line if those other projects can't resolve construction questions and other delays.

``The point is the east-side extension plans have been done, and it is the extension that is ready to go,'' Roybal-Allard said. ``It has the community support, the political support. The east side is being penalized because the Valley isn't able to get their act together.''

Roybal-Allard, Torres and U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra earlier had pushed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board to add the second phase of the east-side extension to the $600 million wish list that will be submitted next week to the House Surface Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which will set transit funding priorities for the next five years.

The four, all Democrats whose districts cover the largely Latino areas between MacArthur Park and the central San Gabriel Valley, said the San Fernando Valley line still hasn't resolved many issues such as whether it will be a subway or an above-ground line.

``It's a question of equity,'' Torres said. ``Just put us on an equal footing, and if the Valley isn't ready to go, we should be able to go. It's not a question of screwing the Valley. Give us the priority based on merit, not on politics.''

Martinez said the many poor areas represented by their districts include hundreds of thousands of transit-dependent people, and a transportation network that is already badly snarled by congestion.

``I think there's a greater need here in the San Gabriel Valley for an east-west connection,'' Martinez said. ``If there's only so much money, when it comes around we have to think about priorities.''

Valley proponents pointed out, however, that recent discussions about whether to bring the east-west line above ground have only been forced because of concerns that Congress won't appropriate enough money to build a subway, which is still the preferred approach.

U.S. Reps. Howard Berman, D-Mission Hills, and Brad Sherman, D-Woodland Hills, tried to calm the debate on Friday, saying they didn't want to ``pour gasoline on the fire.''

``My advice would be to cool down,'' Berman said. ``I think there's a lot of posturing going on. If everyone fights over who goes first, the federal government will be more than happy to shift the money elsewhere or eliminate it altogether.''

But Berman and Sherman also said they planned to work closely with others in the county's delegation to protect the Valley interests, especially with U.S. Rep. Howard ``Buck'' McKeon, the Santa Clarita Republican whose district includes the Valley's northwestern third, and U.S. Rep. Julian Dixon, the Los Angeles Democrat who has been the MTA's biggest champion in Washington.

McKeon was a member of the Transportation Committee last term and maintains close relationships with the committee and subcommittee chairmen who will control the process this year.

Dixon, whose pet project has been the Mid-City extension of the Red Line through his Crenshaw-area district, is also expected to fight any efforts by east-siders to leapfrog his project, which has been slowed for several years by the discovery of underground pockets of poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas.