Newest Metro Rail Bout: What to Cut if Funds Are Short

When Los Angeles transportation officials last week decided that Metro Rail’s next phase should go all the way to North Hollywood, they acknowledged that they were being optimistic.

After all, such a line will cost about $2.12 billion, officials estimated, with only about $1.4 billion readily available.

This week, they are being more cautious.

“We now have an alignment” to North Hollywood, Alan Pegg, interim general manager of the RTD, said Tuesday. “Now the decision is, what are we going to build?”

Writing Up Sales Pitches

RTD officials are, in effect, writing up sales pitches to get more money for the project from state and federal sources, hoping to make up for a shortfall of either $700 million, according to the RTD, or $900 million, according to a consultant hired by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. Pegg said the RTD expects to “wrap up” funding agreements by Sept. 30.

At the same time, officials and political appointees are trying to set priorities for the route in case full funding is not attained. The Metro Rail planning could be in for significant changes.

The all-subway route, as approved last Wednesday by the Los Angeles City Council and the following day by the board of directors of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, would start at the terminus of Phase One--MacArthur Park--and proceed west along Wilshire Boulevard to Western Avenue.

The subway would have a “T” intersection at Wilshire and Vermont Avenue, with the line extending north on Vermont, turning west on Hollywood Boulevard, then northwest at Hollywood and Highland Avenue, proceeding through the Cahuenga Pass to Universal City, then along Lankershim Boulevard to North Hollywood, terminating at Lankershim and Chandler boulevards.

The full route would extend Metro Rail to 17.7 miles, with 16 stations, starting from the Phase One starting point at Union Station. But only about 10 miles of funding are available now, officials say.

Public discussions among elected and appointed officials, as well as interviews with transit officials, suggest that two legs would be the first to go if funding is not available. Those are the northernmost link between Universal City and North Hollywood and the westerly spur along Wilshire, between Vermont and Western.

There is wide agreement among officials that Metro Rail should at minimum reach the edge of the San Fernando Valley at Universal City. Reaching the Valley has long been a goal of officials.

Legislature’s ‘Carrot’

If Metro Rail falls short of the Valley, the transit authority would forfeit about $150 million accruing in a special fund set up by state legislation as a “carrot,” said Mike Lewis, an aide to Supervisor Pete Schabarum and his alternate on the county Transportation Commission.

Phase Two described by RTD officials held out North Hollywood as a future destination, but it was included in the program at the insistence of the City Council. Councilman Joel Wachs, who represents the area, and other Valley-area council members lobbied for the extension.

Meanwhile, Councilman Nate Holden, who represents part of the Mid-Wilshire District, lobbied for the Wilshire extension to Western. But a divided committee of the Transportation Commission, a major funding source of Metro Rail, on Monday voted 2 to 1, with one abstention, urging that the Western spur between Vermont and Western be dropped if its cost would jeopardize the Valley extension.

“There’s a $200-million tail out there that doesn’t do anything,” Lewis said of the spur to Western. Lewis, whose boss represents the San Gabriel Valley, said Metro Rail is consuming too much money, potentially hampering light rail programs and other mass transit efforts elsewhere in the county.

But Holden, who is attending the Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, suggested that officials who are trying to set priorities for funding are acting too hastily. Holden predicted that more federal funds will be available for mass transit regardless of whether Michael Dukakis or George Bush is elected President.