MTA to Borrow $1.1Billion to Speed Up Delayed Projects

Hit hard by state budget cutbacks, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to borrow more than $1.1 billion over the next 10 years to jump-start freeway and rail projects throughout Los Angeles County.

The borrowing plan unanimously adopted by the MTA board Thursday is intended to speed up -- by as much as six years -- the construction of several major projects that have been delayed by funding shortfalls. The projects include widening portions of Interstate 5, building the Exposition Boulevard light rail line from downtown Los Angeles to Culver City and improving the Alameda Corridor East freight rail corridor in the San Gabriel Valley.

At stake, officials say, is more than alleviating congestion. If the projects continue to be delayed, the region -- including Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties -- risks violating clean air laws and losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year in federal funding.

“Frankly, we don’t have a lot of other options right now, given the times,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, an MTA director.

During the last four years, Los Angeles County lost $1.35 billion in transportation funding, mostly because the cash-strapped state government has been diverting gasoline sales tax revenues intended for freeway and transit projects to other uses, MTA officials say.

Two months ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation expressed concerns that major transportation projects in the region lacked funding. Clean air laws require regions to implement projects on a “timely basis” or else possibly lose federal funding.

Thursday’s plan permits the MTA to sell, as a last resort, up to $1.143 billion in bonds to be paid back by future Proposition C tax revenues and to use $171 million in cash from that measure. Approved by voters in 2000, Proposition C added half a cent to the county sales tax to fund transportation projects. No further ballot measure is needed for the borrowing.

The plan would provide up to $541.4 million for carpool lanes for the Santa Ana Freeway, from the 605 Freeway to the Orange County border, and $254.2 million for carpool lanes on the Golden State Freeway, between the Ventura and Hollywood freeways in the San Fernando Valley.

It also would provide up to $240.9 million for the Exposition Boulevard line, $85 million for Alameda Corridor East and $192.7 million for smaller projects, including a connector between the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways.

Some questioned the wisdom of taking money from future projects. “What you’re doing is feeding off your own flesh. You’re self-cannibalizing,” said John Walsh, a spokesman for L.A. Twice, a transit watchdog group.

But Brian Taylor, director of the UCLA Institute for Transportation Studies, said that it makes sense to borrow if benefits to the public are greater than the costs over time.