Federal Funds for L.A. Subway Trimmed

* Re “Congress Leaves MTA With Less Subway Funding,” Sept. 12: The whistle has blown on the MTA gravy train. Congress has slashed its funding. The U.S. Senate is investigating corruption. It is time to end the denial, the delusions and the arrogance and make some fundamental choices.

Only by stopping the subway now can public transit in Los Angeles be saved. Continuing to tunnel under Runyon Canyon from North Hollywood to Hollywood, at great environmental risk, will cost over $1 billion, thus devouring the scarce funds that are needed for buses and Valley light rail.

To give another example, the subway project is rapidly absorbing the discretionary sales tax money available to L.A. for buses, street improvement and anti-congestion measures. Mayor Richard Riordan, the most powerful member of the MTA board, budgeted $28 million of these discretionary funds for the subway project versus $8 million for street maintenance (and only $300,000 for his “neighborhood initiative” to clean and beautify communities affected by MTA con- struction).

The six-mile subway extension that passes under Runyon Canyon is projected to support only 40,000 daily passenger trips in 20 years, a tiny fraction of 1% of the commute trips each day in the MTA service area. That’s why the project is a gravy train, not a transit solution.

STATE SEN. TOM HAYDEN

D-Los Angeles

* Re “Subway Money: Fat Era Ends, and L.A.’s Got to Go to Work,” editorial, Sept. 15 :

The Times is far too modest in downplaying its role in the reduced level of Los Angeles transit funding coming out of Congress this past week. Nationally, capital funding for transit is not diminishing, it has been essentially holding steady. Given this, in any normal circumstance the MTA should reasonably expect to receive its fair share of the national transit funding pie.

Circumstances in Los Angeles are far from normal, however. For the past three years, The Times has been on a relentless and destructive campaign against the L.A. subway and all who come near it. In another recent editorial, The Times rightfully stated that the MTA must not be allowed to fail in its mission (Sept. 2). If you really believe that, then perhaps The Times should reexamine its own mission.

Only an editor in complete denial could fail to acknowledge that past sensational stories from The Times were certainly swirling around in the heads of many key federal legislators last week as they slashed our transit funding.

EDWARD McSPEDON

West Hills

McSpedon was president of the Rail Construction Corp. from 1990 to 1994.