Counties, railroads at odds over rail funds
The Schwarzenegger administration collided head-on Tuesday with transportation officials from five Southern California counties over the governor’s proposal to use public funds to help two private railroads pay for a $198-million rail project at Colton crossing in San Bernardino County.
Tensions rose at a two-hour public hearing in Los Angeles when Caltrans official Ross Chittenden asked the commission to invest public money to help eliminate a major bottleneck where the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks cross at Colton.
But moments before, representatives from Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties had urged the California Transportation Commission to spend $2.2 billion in state bond money on dozens of highway, rail and bridge projects that would speed the movement of goods across Southern California. Their proposal did not include the Colton crossing.
Commission member Larry Zarian, a former chairman of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, demanded to know who would pay for cost overruns if the Colton crossing project went over budget.
Juan Acosta, a Sacramento lobbyist for Burlington Northern Santa Fe, told the commission that any cost overruns would be borne by the railroads. But Acosta took a rhetorical shot at Zarian, noting there were major cost overruns on MTA’s construction of the Los Angeles subway system. “I don’t think the public sector manages cost overruns better than the private sector,” Acosta said.
The remark reflected the high stakes as competing regions of the state battle for a share of $3 billion in goods-movement money that was included in a nearly $20-billion transportation bond measure approved by California voters in November 2006. The commission is scheduled to decide April 10 which projects will receive state bond money.
After listening to the disagreement among the five counties, the administration and the railroads, Commission Chairman James Ghielmetti put advocates of the Colton crossing project on notice that many details still needed to be worked out. “I would suggest we get busy” if this is going to be a proposal the commission is going to consider seriously, Ghielmetti said.
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