SENATE OKS BILL TO ALLOW VOTE ON NEW MTA TAX.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

Legislation allowing the MTA to put a third half-cent sales tax for transit projects before voters next year passed the Senate on Thursday and now goes to Gov. Gray Davis for his signature.

The proposed tax would raise $700 million annually for six years to fund subway, rail, bus and freeway projects. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority already accounts for 1 cent of the 8.25 cent sales tax paid by consumers in in Los Angeles County.

Davis has 30 days to act on Senate Bill 314, authored by state Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Culver City. If approved, the divided MTA board would then decide whether to put the measure before voters.

MTA board Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky and others have conceded the difficulty in winning the necessary two-thirds voter approval for another tax.

``I guess I'm going to have to wait and see,'' MTA vice chairman and Lancaster Mayor Frank C. Roberts said Thursday about whether he would support going to the voters for the new tax.

Roberts said he was glad to see improvements for the the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways included on the list of projects that would benefit from the tax, but is concerned about spending more money on the Red Line subway.

``I hate to see us spend another $900 million,'' he said.

If approved, the tax would be the third half-cent levy on Los Angeles County, whose voters approved the others in 1980 and 1990 for subway and rail construction.

The tax could stretch for up to six and a half years - the previously approved taxes continue indefinitely.

And while the MTA is prevented from building subways after a voter- approved initiative blocked using sales tax revenues, a new tax would not fall under that restriction, officials said.

The legislation includes a much-debated list of capital projects and programs for which the funding would go - from the Metro Red Line extension along Wilshire Boulevard to the new Exposition Boulevard light-rail line from downtown to Santa Monica.

For the San Fernando Valley, there's $100.5 million for the north-south busways - bus-only lanes along two north-south boulevards in the Valley - as well as car-pool or new lanes along part of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways.

The list also includes Mayor James Hahn's longtime priority for a Crenshaw Boulevard busway.

The Bus Riders Union, which sued the MTA over overcrowding leading to the consent decree that requires more buses, has opposed the tax as regressive.

Lisa Mascaro, [phone]

lisa.mascaro(at)dailynews.com