MTA Revives Plans for Rail Extension, Busways

Tantalized by the possibility that surplus state funds could help pay for Los Angeles’ next round of mass transit projects, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s directors Thursday unanimously endorsed further planning for a light rail line under Boyle Heights, along with busways along Wilshire Boulevard and across the San Fernando Valley.

The decision to pursue a light rail line from Union Station underneath Boyle Heights and beyond was a major breakthrough for an agency that only two years ago halted subway extensions to the Eastside and Mid-City because of its financial difficulties.

MTA officials hope those difficulties may be alleviated by a deal between legislative leaders and Gov. Gray Davis that could bring hundreds of millions of additional transportation dollars to Los Angeles.

Throughout Thursday’s meeting, county supervisors and MTA board members Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Gloria Molina pleaded with their colleagues for consensus on the recommendations being made to Sacramento and Washington on additional funding.

Molina said it was essential that the board be in “lock-step with one another” to win the money needed to build the projects, which will cost about $1.6 billion.

To Molina’s chagrin, the MTA board on an 8-3 vote directed agency planners to study constructing a busway to the Eastside along the same route as the proposed light rail line.

Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, a mayoral candidate, held out the prospect of the state poised to help the MTA with funding for the Eastside, Mid-City and San Fernando Valley projects, if the agency would speak with one voice. “The tenor changed and the reason is we’re coming up with the money,” he said.

His words echoed those of MTA Chief Executive Officer Julian Burke, who reported that substantial additional state funds from Sacramento’s current budget surplus might be made available. “It’s a very important opportunity for addressing the transit needs of our county,” he said.

Villaraigosa and a parade of Eastside lawmakers made the case that their constituents deserved priority.

Former Congressman Esteban Torres, now a member of the California Transportation Commission, pointed out that the area’s overwhelmingly Latino residents had lost out on an expanded County-USC Medical Center and on the Belmont Learning Complex. “We cannot lose on transportation,” he said.

Torres, who long represented the Eastside in Washington, implored Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, the most influential MTA board member, to “leave us a legacy” by pushing for the light rail line. “Please work with us,” he said. “We’ve waited too long.”

In fact, Riordan joined with the Eastside lawmakers in supporting the study of constructing a 1.7-mile-long tunnel for the light railway under Boyle Heights from 1st and Boyle streets to 1st and Lorena streets, following part of the old subway route.

“It’s the only way to go,” Riordan said. “There is no way you can have a dedicated bus lane or light rail [above ground there]. The streets are too narrow.”

Even Supervisor and MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky, who sponsored a 1998 county ballot measure banning the use of local transit sales tax for more subway construction, softened his stance. “What’s the harm in studying it?” he asked. “I’m prepared to support a tunnel funded by someone other than local taxpayers.”

The series of votes to do full environmental impact studies excluded one major area of the city. At the behest of MTA Chairwoman Burke, consideration was delayed for a month on whether to study a light rail line or an exclusive busway along the Exposition Boulevard right-of-way MTA owns.

Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles), another candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, backed light rail and objected strongly to any consideration of a busway to the Eastside. “We have to work this out together or we’ll all fall,” he said.

However, the agency will examine both the light rail line and busway from Union Station through Boyle Heights below ground, returning to the surface via 3rd Street to Beverly and Atlantic boulevards.

But a steady stream of Bus Riders Union members said in English or Spanish that they “do not want rail.” MTA security officers flanked Maria Guardado when she refused to stop shouting at the board after her 30 seconds to speak expired.

The hue and cry over the Eastside overshadowed discussion of the proposal to study an exclusive busway along Wilshire Boulevard from Vermont Avenue west to San Vicente Boulevard. Ultimately, such a lane could extend as far as Santa Monica, if Beverly Hills and the beach city agreed.

The thought of taking two traffic lanes from motorists on the crowded thoroughfare and devoting them to buses was strongly opposed by Mid-Wilshire business groups and a representative of Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden.

Gary Russell, executive director of the Wilshire Center Business Improvement Corp., said: “The MTA staff did not hear or care what the community said.”

A Wilshire homeowners group representative backed the study, preferring it to consideration of a monorail along the boulevard.

The San Fernando Valley busway to be studied would follow the Burbank-Chandler right of way that MTA owns from the North Hollywood subway station west toward Warner Center. It was all but overlooked in the hours of discussion.