Reagan Signs Bill Containing First Metro Rail Funds

The Los Angeles Metro Rail project took a major step toward the start of construction Thursday when President Reagan signed a huge federal spending bill that contains money for the subway’s first phase.

The $368-billion spending measure included a promise of $429 million in federal funds for Metro Rail. Its passage by Congress and enactment climaxed a long legislative battle over getting the project started.

While some obstacles remain, the President’s signing of the bill is a much-needed victory for the proposed subway, which has fallen two years behind its original ground-breaking schedule because of difficulties in securing financing from Washington.

A jubilant Mayor Tom Bradley, who has invested considerable personal prestige in the subway project, said: “This is a wonderful holiday gift for the people of Los Angeles.

“If we had a dollar for every time somebody said Metro Rail was dead, we could have built this system. . . . It’s been a long haul but at long last it appears construction will begin.”

Nikolas Patsaouras, president of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, said: “With faith that the project was good, with will power and tenacity, we are today seeing the President signing a project that a year ago looked dead.”

While the bill strongly states Congress’ intent to proceed with the project, possible snags remain. The RTD still must negotiate a complex contract with the Administration, which strongly opposes the project and has succeeded in delaying release of money for the project in the past.

“We’ve tried to make (the directive to the Administration) as air tight as possible,” said one congressional source supportive of the project. “But you’ve got to wonder what their lawyers are going to be doing for the next several weeks.”

Ralph Stanley, administrator of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, which will negotiate the funding contract with RTD, said, “We’ll make attempts to comply.”

But another high-ranking official in the Administration’s Department of Transportation, which oversees UMTA, said, “If you are asking if we will take every opportunity not to spend the money on the project in Los Angeles, the answer is yes.”

Specifically, the bill instructs the Urban Mass Transit Administration to negotiate within 90 days a contract for the full federal share of the funds needed to build the first $1.25-billion, 4.4-mile segment of the line from downtown’s Union Station to Wilshire Boulevard and Alvarado Street.

The measure earmarks $429 million sought by RTD, including $129 million previously approved by Congress but withheld by the Administration, $101 million in 1986 and the rest in subsequent years as funds become available.

The remainder of the money already has been committed by city, county and state agencies, pending federal approval of its share of the project.

Backers of the project at one time sought a “letter of no prejudice” that would have tentatively extended the federal financial commitment to the entire 18.6-mile line to the San Fernando Valley. But that became too tall an order politically and the final bill makes no federal commitment beyond the first phase.

Stanley warned that a “critical issue” in drafting the contract for the first phase will be ensuring that all of the funds needed to complete the first phase are available before construction begins. That would mean that state and local agencies helping to finance the project assume liability for about $200 million in federal funds needed after 1986, but not yet available, he said.

Authority to use the gas tax funds that pay for Metro Rail and other transit projects expires at the end of 1986. While many congressional observers expect the program to be renewed, Stanley said no one knows for sure how it might be altered. Therefore, Stanley said he would ask the other agencies contributing to the project--the City of Los Angeles, the State of California and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission--to pledge their “full faith and credit” to pay whatever amount the federal government is unable to provide.

Otherwise, “we are negotiating a contract with both of us knowing there are not enough funds to complete it,” he said.

Jacki Bacharach, chairwoman of the county transportation commission, said the panel has a “strong commitment” to Metro Rail and she predicted that there will be support to assume a greater local liability. “But we’re going to have to discuss it. It’s a large commitment,” she said.

Stanley said his agency also is awaiting completion of a report by an independent technical panel reviewing the safety of RTD’s subway tunneling plan to determine whether there are significant problems that need to be addressed through additional environmental impact reports.

Metro Rail began to take shape in the early 1980s, and last year RTD sought a federal commitment to fund the entire 18.6-mile route. But a few months later, RTD had to abandon that strategy in the face of Administration concerns about the long-term costs of the project.

Then late last year, the Reagan Administration, citing the burgeoning federal deficit, called for the elimination of all funds for Metro Rail and other new transit projects.

Proponents of the subway responded with stepped-up congressional lobbying. The latest figures show that RTD has spent about $875,000 for Washington lobbyists over the last three years, not counting the independent lobbying campaign mounted by a private coalition of downtown business interests and labor leaders.

Just as the project appeared to be picking up lost political momentum, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), an influential past supporter of the project, threatened in September to fight any additional funds for the project because of concerns about tunneling through hazardous pockets of methane gas.

The problem was resolved with a compromise calling for rerouting the second segment of Metro Rail to avoid gassy areas near the Fairfax area, in Waxman’s district, where seeping methane gas exploded in a clothing store last year. Waxman also has expressed concerns about the safety of tunneling in the first phase of the project and pressured city officials to create an independent committee of experts to review the project. Their report is not yet complete.

Opponents of Metro Rail say its backers are premature in claiming victory.

“I wouldn’t sharpen my shovel yet. The war isn’t over,” said Rep. Bobbi Fiedler (R-Chatsworth), the leading congressional critic of the project.

“There are still lots of loopholes in the law. There is a pending report coming from the geologists and technical experts on the methane gas and other hazards underground. And until such time as those issues are resolved, the negotiations are done . . . if I were Mayor Tom Bradley, I wouldn’t break out the champagne.”

But Michael J. Malak, a San Fernando Valley rail activist, said he is confident that funds eventually will be found to build the full 18.6-mile Metro Rail line into the Valley.