MTA Board Puts Pasadena Light-Rail Line Back on Track

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board Monday gave the green light to construction of a light-rail line between Union Station and Pasadena, despite concerns over whether the new transit agency running the project can finish it with the funds available.

The decision to get the stalled Pasadena project moving again came despite the objection of the Bus Riders Union, which intends to protest the move at today’s meeting of the California Transportation Commission.

The state panel will be the last of three agencies to act on a series of agreements providing the funding and property needed to restart work on the 13.7-mile rail line.

Paul Little, chairman of the Pasadena Metro Blue Line Construction Authority, anticipates

smooth sailing before the state panel. “We’re building now!” Little said after the MTA board voted 9 to 2 to approve the transfer of $68.7 million in county transit sales tax money to the Pasadena rail authority.

But County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, vice chairwoman of the MTA board, warned Pasadena rail advocates not to come back to the MTA for more money if there are cost overruns on the project. “We’re not guaranteeing any additional funding,” she told the Pasadena advocates.

Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, an MTA board member, argued that it is not the MTA’s problem if “they don’t deliver the project.”

To which Burke responded: “It is our problem. We are the ones who have to operate it.”

The MTA was stripped of responsibility for building the Pasadena project by state lawmakers frustrated with the agency’s track record on other Los Angeles rail projects. However, the state law creating the Pasadena rail authority requires the MTA to run the streetcar-like trains to Pasadena once the line is built.

Faced with financial difficulties, the MTA board in January 1998 halted work on the Pasadena project, as well as on subway extensions to the Eastside and Mid-City areas. More than $234 million has been spent on the rail line, which is only about 11% complete.

The new five-member rail agency was created with one mission--to get the Pasadena line built with the funds available.

“We can’t waste money,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Hernandez, vice chairman of the Pasadena authority. “We have to be able to deliver what we say we’re going to deliver.”

Bus Riders Union member Kirti Baranwal told the board that transferring the money to the Pasadena project violates the civil rights of MTA bus riders, who want court-ordered improvements in the bus system to come first.

Supporters of the rail line said it will serve the transit-dependent along the route from Union Station through Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, South Pasadena and Pasadena.

Before approving the agreements, MTA board members led by Burke and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky insisted on clamping some controls on the county’s remaining contribution to the rail project. Recalling the excessive spending on consultants when the project was in MTA’s hands, they prohibited any spending of the local money for public relations or lobbying activities.

Little said he had no objection to prohibiting spending on lobbying and public relations, but objected to further restrictions, saying the Pasadena agency intends to make extensive use of contracting out to save money on overhead.

After a brief debate, the MTA board agreed the local money is to be spent for “engineering and construction-related contracts necessary for the completion of the project.”

To protect its own interests, the MTA board approved a provision stating that the agency is not committed to providing any funds for a future extension of the light-rail line from Pasadena east to Claremont until other high-priority projects are completed.

Yaroslavsky and Burke also questioned whether the precariously balanced $683.7-million financial plan crafted by the Pasadena authority is realistic. They questioned the assumption that $18 million can be raised from leasing the right to run fiber-optic cable along the entire right of way from downtown to Claremont.