Panel Reduces U.S. Funds for MTA Subway

A key congressional panel Tuesday cut back federal funding for Los Angeles subway construction to its lowest annual level this decade, allocating $61.5 million--short of the $100 million sought by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

But MTA officials said they should be able to keep the Hollywood-to-San Fernando Valley subway extension on track by dipping into reserve funds.

And, in light of the MTA’s nationally reported troubles, local officials expressed relief that the agency got as much as it did, let alone ended up as the nation’s third-highest-funded new transit project. The problems included the MTA’s repeated failure to draft a “recovery plan” demanded by federal officials.

“Although it falls short of our original request, we have traveled light-years from where we started,” said Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, chairman of the MTA board.

But County Supervisor and MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky said that declining funding from Washington probably will derail plans for subway extensions to the Eastside and Mid-City.

The subway received about 8% of the $800 million allocated this year nationwide for new transit projects--a far cry from three years ago when Los Angeles received about $163 million, one-fourth of the federal funding. The Los Angeles subway finished this year slightly behind projects in Portland, Ore., and Salt Lake City.

“It’s clear that we’re not being given the kind of resources from Washington to meet the plans that were drawn up” a decade ago, Yaroslavsky said. “The demand that L.A. taxpayers ought to be making [of the MTA] is ‘Show me the money.’ ”

The House-Senate conference committee recommendation goes to both chambers of Congress and to the president for expected approval. It represented a compromise between the $51 million recommended by the Senate and $76 million proposed by the House.

The conference committee report approved Tuesday recommends that $24 million of the $61.5 million be spent on a subway extension to the Eastside.

Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-Pico Rivera), a member of the transportation appropriations subcommittee, said through an aide that he and others wanted to ensure that the transit-dependent Eastside was not forgotten.

The report also provides that none of the money will be sent to Los Angeles until the MTA completes a plan explaining how it will pay for its promised rail projects and court-ordered bus improvements. Additionally, before the MTA can receive the money, the Federal Transit Administration must certify that “the fiscal management of the project meet or exceed accepted U.S. government standards.”

Riordan recently brought in corporate turnaround specialist Julian Burke to serve as interim MTA chief executive officer and straighten out the agency’s finances.

The subway funds will come out of a $40-billion-plus transportation funding bill for fiscal 1998.

The measure includes $10 million for the MTA to continue development of its “stealth” bus, a new, lightweight, low-polluting vehicle made out of materials similar to those used in the B-2 bomber, $9 million to Foothill Transit in the San Gabriel Valley for development of a bus maintenance facility, and $1.5 million to Long Beach Transit for the purchase of more buses to serve the Aquarium of the Pacific, due to open next year, and the Queensway Bay commercial development.

Also provided is $1.5 million for study and design of an “intelligent transportation system” that will improve truck movement from downtown Los Angeles to south Orange County.

The funding is the lowest amount provided to the project since $69 million was allocated for fiscal 1992. Congress provided in excess of $100 million annually thereafter until fiscal 1996 when funding dropped to $85 million. The agency last year was allocated $70 million--less than half of what it sought--forcing it to delay completion dates for subway extensions to the Eastside and Mid-City.

But Arthur V. Sohikian, a former MTA lobbyist who is now a private consultant, praised the Southern California congressional delegation for its efforts this year “to bring money to L.A. when influential congressional members from other states were ready to pull the plug on the project.”

The federal government has committed to pay for about half of the $6.1-billion subway, the West’s largest public works project. Los Angeles County taxpayers also help to fund the project from a 1% transit tax on sales.

The 5.3-mile subway now runs from Union Station to Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue.

The MTA plans to spend about $650 million this year on subway construction. The agency is finishing work on extending the subway from Wilshire up Vermont Avenue to Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street (scheduled to open late next year) and is constructing tunnels through the Santa Monica Mountains to take the subway to North Hollywood (scheduled to open in 2000). Excavation is scheduled to begin next spring on a subway extension from Union Station to Boyle Heights. An extension from Wilshire and Western to Pico and San Vicente boulevards in the Mid-City also is planned.

Plans call for completing the extensions to the Eastside in 2004 and Mid-City in 2008. But the MTA is considering delaying the projects by three more years because of concern that its sales tax projections have been too optimistic.

Los Angeles officials are awaiting another crucial decision out of Washington, dealing with their request for $723 million from a multiyear transportation funding bill.