Transit Projects’ Funding Delayed

Responding to deep budget cuts proposed by Gov. Gray Davis, the California Transportation Commission temporarily suspended approval Thursday of dozens of new spending requests, including funds for several high-profile projects in Los Angeles County.

In its first meeting since Davis unveiled a plan to cut billions of dollars from the state budget over the next 18 months, the panel voted to delay all new spending until February, with the exception of a handful of safety-related projects such as seismic retrofitting on freeways.

A Davis spokesman called the commission’s move “a positive action,” taken at the administration’s urging.

The decision temporarily put on hold funding in Los Angeles County for two light-rail lines, a downtown Los Angeles pedestrian improvement project and a rail cargo upgrade, among several other requests.

But state officials cautioned that no final decision has been made on any project. “I don’t think any project is in jeopardy right now,” said Commission Chairwoman Dianne McKenna.

Under Davis’ proposed cuts, unveiled last week, the California Department of Transportation would lose $1.8 billion over the next year and a half, making it one of the hardest-hit agencies. Davis’ overall package recommended $10.2 billion in cuts and other savings for the rest of this fiscal year and 2003-04.

McKenna said the two-month freeze is needed to give the Legislature time to respond to the governor’s proposed reductions and possibly recommend ways of increasing revenue to minimize the cuts.

Still, several transportation officials agreed that lawmakers won’t be able to spare Caltrans from some significant cuts.

“We are going to be facing some tough financial times,” Robert Garcia, Caltrans’ chief financial officer, told the commission at a meeting in San Jose.

After the briefing Garcia said the cuts would probably be felt especially hard in Southern California, a region plagued by congested freeways and overburdened bus systems.

“Los Angeles would be hit particularly hard,” he said.

Among the dozens of funding decisions postponed Thursday was a request for $15.4 million by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to purchase 50 passenger cars for the new Metro Rail Gold Line between downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena, which is scheduled to open in July.

Also postponed was a $14-million request by the MTA for preliminary engineering studies of the so-called Exposition Line between downtown and Santa Monica.

In addition, the commission put off approval of $9.6 million for a road and sidewalk improvement project on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles that MTA officials had hoped would be completed in time for the October grand opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall.

A decision on a $6.8-million MTA request to improve a rail line that carries cargo from downtown Los Angeles to Riverside County was also deferred.

MTA officials attending the meeting worried that the commission’s decision to postpone the funding could cause some serious problems.

The delay won’t hamper the launch of the Gold Line; about 50 passenger cars have already been purchased. However, MTA officials worry that waiting to buy the additional 50 might make it difficult to serve the heavy ridership expected after the line opens and is extended to the Eastside, said David Yale, director of capital planning for the MTA.

He also said the funding delays could cause havoc if the Grand Avenue project is under construction when Disney Hall opens.

The commission plans to meet in January with local transportation officials from throughout the state to discuss how to pare their wish lists. Projects whose funding has already been approved will probably not be cut, but some commission members said the budget crisis could freeze funding for every new transportation project in the state for the next year and a half.

“It looks like Caltrans and our staff will go into a mode of trying to keep up the roads we have now and not building any new roads,” said Commissioner John R. Lawson.

As the commission gathered in San Jose, somber MTA officials meeting in Los Angeles began to discuss how to keep their favorite projects alive.

MTA chief Roger Snoble, who has tried to rally the county around a unified vision for transportation since he took over last year, told the MTA board that the budget crunch underscored the need for the county’s disparate regions to agree on a few major projects.

“We have to be leaders on this,” he said, adding that if the MTA does not build its priority projects, traffic in the region will worsen.

MTA board member and county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky urged his colleagues to fight the cuts so transportation funding does not become the state’s “repository for getting money.”

In the San Fernando Valley, Caltrans officials said, the actions Thursday will probably not delay the soon-to-open auxiliary lane on the San Diego Freeway just south of the Ventura Freeway, or a bridge project on the Golden State Freeway in Santa Clarita, because money has already been allocated for them.

In Orange County, officials have predicted that the budget crisis could delay construction of a long-awaited expansion of the Garden Grove Freeway, which hasn’t had a major upgrade since it opened almost 35 years ago.

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Times staff writers Dan Weikel, Caitlin Liu, Kurt Streeter and Dan Morain contributed to this report.