MTA Must Play a High-Stakes Funding Game in Washington

When Los Angeles transit officials meet today in Washington with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena, the gathering will resemble a high-stakes poker game.

On one side of the table will be Metropolitan Transportation Authority board members, who can’t seem to agree on whether to proceed with building Los Angeles’ subway in the face of a shortfall in federal funding. On the other side will be Pena, who has yet to show his cards. His stand is important because the money in this hand’s pot belongs to the federal government.

What does seem clear is that MTA officials cannot agree on how to proceed. Amid the uncertainty, they face a projected $1-billion shortfall in their long-range transit plan, but they can’t seem to end the political infighting over a tunneling project that has become nationally known for construction problems.

Seven of the 13 transit board members have told The Times that they have second thoughts about proceeding with the $300-million-per-mile subway. Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, who sits on the MTA board and appoints three other members, expressed such concerns publicly for the first time last week when he questioned whether the agency can afford to extend the subway to the Mid-City. The estimated cost of that line was originally $490 million but has already risen by $160 million.

But so far, no board member has pushed for a vote on the subway project; no one has taken a leadership role in trying to push the board toward reevaluating what is the cheapest and fastest way to provide rapid transit throughout the county.

Federal Transit Administrator Gordon J. Linton warned in an interview Friday that the MTA faces funding difficulties in Washington if it continues to send what amounts to a mixed message: “We don’t have any consensus. We’re all over the planet.”

“Is there a commitment of the board to a project as whole?” Linton said. “‘We need to look at what their vision is for the rail project in Los Angeles--how they’re going to meet that vision within the financial constraints.”

Millions of federal dollars already earmarked for Los Angeles are tied to an agreement to extend the subway to the Eastside, Mid-City and East San Fernando Valley.

All county residents have a stake in the decision. Not only are they helping to pay for the subway through their taxes, but any decision could also determine how soon--if ever--transit projects reach more neighborhoods.

Construction is scheduled to begin next year on a 3 1/2-mile, nearly $1-billion extension from Union Station to 1st and Lorena streets on the Eastside. No date has been set for the start of excavation on the 2.3-mile Mid-City extension from Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue to Pico and San Vicente boulevards because of geological problems.

Tunneling for a 4-mile subway extension from Hollywood through the Santa Monica Mountains to North Hollywood began in 1995 and is expected to be completed next year. Digging beneath Lankershim Boulevard was delayed for months by repeated street sinkages; the cost has soared at least $25 million, or 45%, over original estimates. Meanwhile, excavation through the hills was halted for six weeks in the summer when insufficiently strong tunnel support beams buckled, trapping a giant digging machine.

The financial and political climate has changed dramatically since the County Transportation Commission--one of the agencies later merged into the MTA--voted in 1991 for those extensions. Former Mayor Tom Bradley, the subway’s earliest champion, has been replaced by Riordan, who sees buses as the backbone of the county’s transportation system.

And money is running short. The federal government has agreed to pay about half of the $5.9-billion subway tab, but the project is already $400 million over budget, and Congress actually has provided less money than it promised.

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What to do about the shortfall in federal subway construction funds is the central problem: U.S. officials insist that their agreement with the county requires local taxpayers to make up the difference, even if that means the MTA must siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars intended for other transit projects.

Many MTA officials complain that Congress has reneged on its agreement by not providing money on schedule. Board member John Fasana, a Duarte councilman, has vowed to ask Pena today both for an extension of the federal funding contract and for an increase in its amount to make up for the high cost of delay.

Fellow board member Zev Yaroslavsky, a county supervisor, scoffed at that notion, quipping: “I’m sure that’ll go over real well.”

Federal officials insist that their agreement with the county requires local taxpayers to make up the difference. Indeed, the MTA board later this week is scheduled to vote on shifting $300 million from other transit projects to help keep subway tunneling on schedule.

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Some MTA officials say they need to renegotiate the agreement with the federal government anyway because the subway extensions are behind schedule and appear unlikely to meet the required completion dates.

There are considerable forces at play that will make it difficult for the MTA to change course.

Politics is one.

Politicians on the heavily Latino Eastside and in the African American community in the Mid-City and South Los Angeles lobbied hard for subway projects to serve their transit-dependent communities. The Mid-City subway is expected to eventually link up with a proposed Crenshaw line that would run into South L.A.

The Eastside also has a strong booster, Richard Alatorre, Riordan’s strongest council ally, who has pushed hard for extension of the subway through his Eastside district. And the Mid-City project has been championed by Rep. Julian Dixon (D-Los Angeles), who has led efforts on Capitol Hill to secure funds for the MTA.

But the biggest obstacle to any change in course may be the thick agreement signed in May 1993 that commits the MTA to extend the subway to the Eastside, Mid-City and east San Fernando Valley in exchange for federal funds.

Subway supporters insist it is too late to change direction now, warning that other cities are salivating at Los Angeles’ indecision and see it as an opportunity to grab for themselves federal funds now allocated for the Metro Rail project.

MTA planners also say that alternatives to a subway, such as an above-ground rail line, to the densely populated Eastside and Mid-City, were studied but rejected because they would be just as costly and environmentally troublesome.

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They also suggest that a change in course would force county residents to wait even longer for rapid transit because of the need for additional studies and government approvals.

If the MTA board wants to study the issue again, “we would lose the [federal] money that’s there now,” said the MTA’s planning chief James de la Loza. “They wouldn’t hold that for us. They’d tell us, ‘Come back when you have a plan.’

“It’s a significant gamble that we would take,” de la Loza said. “I wouldn’t be so adamant if we hadn’t taken a look at this already.” Planners say that the agency could, however, consider above-ground rail lines for future extensions of the subway.

Yaroslavsky says Riordan is the key to a consensus. “All eyes point to the mayor,” he said. “He has got to lead. The mayor, because of his four votes, needs to articulate a vision now, and use his votes to carry that vision out,” Yaroslavsky said, adding that he has personally delivered that message to Riordan. “Without the mayor’s engagement, the board will continue to wallow.”

Riordan’s office issued a one-sentence response to Yaroslavsky’s comments: “The mayor has succeeded in making safe and quality bus service part of any MTA vision, and he will continue to challenge the agency to develop a mix of regional transit options that accommodate Angelenos’ current and future needs in cost-efficient, timely and equitable ways.”

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Riordan plans to participate in the Washington meeting by phone from Los Angeles. Last week he said the federal government needs to give local officials greater flexibility in how they spend federal transit funds.

MTA Board Chairman Larry Zarian, who will lead the MTA delegation to Washington, said he plans to ask Pena for guidance on how the MTA can complete the subway in light of the funding shortfall.

“I’m going to say, ‘If Congress is not giving us the money, how are we going to build something that you want?’ ” Zarian said.