LACMTA adds underground alternative to Regional Connector study (Source: /www.progressiverailroading.com)

LACMTA adds underground alternative to Regional Connector study

LACMTA adds underground alternative to Regional Connector study

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (LACMTA) board recently approved the addition of a new underground light-rail alternative beneath Little Tokyo to the Regional Connector Transit Corridor study that’s under environmental review. The Regional Connector would complete a nearly two-mile transit gap between the Metro Gold, Blue and future Expo lines through downtown Los Angeles.

During scoping and working group meetings, Little Tokyo community members opposed a grade crossing at First and Alameda Streets that they believed would disrupt street activity in the historic area. Projected to cost between $200 million and $300 million, the new alternative proposes two variations of an underground crossing at the intersection to keep trains grade separated and the addition of an underground station. Portals would be built on both streets to enable trains to surface and connect with the existing Metro Gold Line.

A project team that’s preparing a draft environmental impact study/report now will conduct technical studies to determine the alternative’s costs, impacts and benefits. LACMTA plans to present the board a locally preferred alternative for final environmental review later this year.

If funding is obtained through a combination of local, state and federal sources, the project could break ground in 2014 and be completed in 2018 or 2019.

Metro Board meeting preview (Source: thesource.metro.net)

The Source » Metro Board meeting preview

Posted by Steve Hymon on February 24, 2010 - 3:17 pm
Metro Board meeting preview

The Metro Board of Directors have their monthly meeting at Metro headquarters in downtown Thursday at 9:30 a.m. I’ll be there to cover the meeting and here’s quick look at the agenda and some of the decisions the Board is scheduled to make:

Item 5 expands the draft environmental impact report for the Downtown Connector to consider the train going under Alameda Street with a new underground station in Little Tokyo. Here’s a recent post.

Item 18 would approve a comprehensive audit of the money that Metro spends on litigation. There will likely be some debate among Board Members over the need for an audit, its cost and who would perform an audit if approved.

Item 34 would make Metro the lead agency in the environmental review of the city of Los Angeles’ downtown streetcar project.

Item 47 would allow for a delay of up to 19 months in implementing Metro’s Express Lanes project on parts of the 10 and 110 freeways. Here’s yesterday’s post about that issue.


-- Steve Hymon

Measure R Acceleration Plans Aren’t a Political Slam Dunk (Source: Streetsblog Los Angeles)

Link: Streetsblog Los Angeles » Measure R Acceleration Plans Aren’t a Political Slam Dunk

Measure R Acceleration Plans Aren’t a Political Slam Dunk

by Damien Newton on July 14, 2009

Graph: Metro via LAist

The Internet is abuzz with the news that Mayor Villaraigosa and his allies on the Metro Board are pushing for the acceleration of three transit projects that are partially funded with the now incoming Measure R funds. LAist breaks down the new plans, outlined in a power point presentation for this Thursday's Measure R Committee Meeting at Metro Headquarters.

Those projects are moving opening dates of the regional connector in downtown from 2025 to 2018, the second Gold Line Eastside Extension to 2035 to 2018 and the Green Line to LAX from 2028 to 2017.

Meanwhile, the Gold Line Foothill Extension Authority is in "Why Not Us" mode, and is demanding that their favorite project, the Gold Line Extenstion to Azusa and beyond, be similarly accelerated.

But I have a different concern than what projects are getting accelerated and what project aren't: where is the money coming for this? After all, we know that sales tax revenues are coming in lower than expected so it's not like Metro is overly flush with cash right now.

Based on what is available in the power point, available on pages 28 and 29 for those following the presentation at home, it seems the plan is to borrow against future revenue. The interest created by the debt would be partially offset by the savings Metro will see because of avoiding the increased costs of doing construction in the future. At this point, there are no firm figures available to show us how much debt would be accrued or if the proposed acceleration would seriously damage Metro's ability to operate in the future; except that the accelerated project list means a $3.5 billion funding gap and a larger than anticipated operating defecit which would result in either fare increases or service cuts. In fact, the debt created by accelerating just the Downtown Connector is over two and a quarter billion dollars over more debt.

Of course, many transit advocates think the fares are too low as it is, and want to see them go up so that the system, as a whole, can run better. However, we have to recognize that it's not going to be an easy political decision for the board to raise fares in the short and long terms, especially after promising to use Measure R funds to keep fares low.

Bart Reed, executive director of the Transit Coalition, explains, "They haven't had the political courage to charge the right price for their service. To operate the kind of system that we need, they should be charging $2.25 per ride. Right now they are collecting an average of sixty-nine cents per boarding, and they can't run the kind of service they're talking about here on that amount."

All we have to evaluate these two proposals, accelerated schedule versus "strict" schedule, are these two sets of bullet points on the pros and cons of the acceleration. According to Metro, if we accelerated the schedule here would be the results, besides having these three rail projects done earlier,

* We would have up to $3.5 billion funding gap
* We would incur additional debt and operating costs
* We would save on construction escalation costs
* We would require 2/3 vote of the Board to accelerate Measure R funds

Conversely, here is what shape following the plan as passed by the voters would have for Metro's fiscal state:

* Projects would be delivered in accordance with Measure R Expenditure Plan
* After operating deficit is resolved there would be no funding shortfall
* We would not save in construction escalation costs
* We would not incur additional debt and operating costs

In other words, let's not mark down "Downtown Connector Opening Party" on our calendars for 2018 just yet. There's a lot of big and real fiscal hurdles that Metro needs to jump through to show it can afford the acceleration before Villaraigosa can deal with the politics of trying to get 2/3 of the Board to follow his wishes.