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I Will Ride Blog

Friend to the Gold Line Foothill Extension
Posted by Albert

Fresh off the heals of our report on the derailment (no pun intended) of Duarte Mayor John Fasana’s noble attempt to expedite funding for the Foothill Extension at the April Metro Planning & Programming Committee meeting, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News, and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (all owned by the Los Angeles Newspaper Group) carried an editorial welcoming Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky as a friend of the Gold Line Foothill Extension.

If you don’t remember, Mr. Yaroslavsky at that meeting said this about the Foothill Extension:

“The Foothill Gold Line is well positioned – better positioned than any other single line right now with the possible exception of the No. 1 priority project of the agency, which is the completion of Phase 2 of Expo – to move, and move quickly. It’s going to happen. I’m going to support it.”

While the editorial, posted on April 28th in the Daily Bulletin and over the weekend in the other papers, offers a bit of reciprocation to the supervisor by reiterating support for Los Angeles city light-rail projects – including the Expo Line and Subway to the Sea – the paper is quick to give a reminder of the “economies of scale” for each rail project:

Expo Line Phase I, Downtown LA to Culver City:
$120 million per mile

Expo Line Phase II, Culver City to Santa Monica:
$120 million per mile

Subway to the Sea:
$700 million per mile

Foothill Extension, Pasadena to Claremont:
$30 million per mile

All of this money (except for the already under-construction Expo Phase I) will come from Measure R, the countywide, half-cent sales tax increase Metro will begin collecting July 1st.

In the current and un-finalized state of Metro’s Long Range Transportation Plan, the Foothill Extension is slated to receive $735 million in 2014-15 and finish construction by 2017. That timeframe is too long for those who have to suffer through the 210 freeway every morning and every evening.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News, and Inland Valley Daily Bulletin offer a remedy to that problem: Metro ought to “include the Gold Line in its long range plans at its May meeting and guarantee funding starting in 2010.” Such a feasible and sensible idea would enable the Foothill Extension’s first phase, Pasadena to Azusa, to open in 2013.