MTA Approves Delay of Cross-Valley Rail Line

Forced by an urgent need to win back Washington’s cash and confidence, the MTA board Wednesday grudgingly approved a plan that delays construction of a San Fernando Valley rail line for years while promising to improve bus service and finish the Los Angeles subway.

The action came after Mayor Richard Riordan warned fellow members of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board that if they failed to approve the “recovery plan” demanded by federal officials, “we’re liable to get zero” money from Congress this year.

“If a person waits for a perfect plan, nothing will happen,” Riordan said after the vote. “This is not a perfect plan, but we have to have a plan if we’re going to be in the running.”

Riordan, elected with strong support from the Valley, won approval for an attempt to put some type of mass transit project in the Valley back on track, proposing the MTA solicit proposals for transit projects on the Burbank-Chandler right of way from private industry.

The mayor initially agreed to hold off on his proposal until the next board meeting after MTA board member and county Supervisor Gloria Molina objected that Riordan’s proposal to set aside money for environmental studies and design of the Valley line was long on promises but devoid of dollars.

A united front of seven City Council members from the Valley and several lawmakers demanded that the MTA board move up the cross-Valley line. Councilman Hal Bernson said the group may now press their case before the City Council, where the fate of $200 million essential to the plan’s success will be decided. MTA is counting on $200 million in city funds to help pay for subway construction.

“The MTA has taken the Valley for granted and keeps postponing us and putting other things in front,” Bernson said.

“If we don’t get ours,” Bernson said, there is a sense that “nobody should get theirs. Maybe that’s what it takes.”

The federal government, which is picking up a big share of the $6.1-billion subway tab, has demanded that the county transit agency get control of its finances and scale back its habit of promising more than it can deliver. At stake in the next two weeks is the MTA’s request for $100 million from Congress for subway extensions to North Hollywood and the Eastside.

While nine board members approved the plan as an imperfect but necessary compromise, three dissenters objected that the proposal is based on shaky financial and political assumptions that could once again leave commuters with even less mass transit than promised.

“We’re misleading ourselves. We’re certainly misleading the public,” county Supervisor and MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky said. “What you have is a recovery plan that is flawed, that is shaky at best, where there is a high probability of sending the MTA into a further tailspin.”

MTA Chairman Larry Zarian surprised his colleagues by voting against the plan. “I’m not supporting a shell game,” the Glendale mayor said.

The plan--to now be submitted to Gordon Linton, federal transit administrator, for approval--calls for pushing back the start of construction on the long-promised east-west Valley line from the original 2004 date until 2007, and maybe 2011.

Linton said in a telephone interview after the vote that the MTA is “moving in the right direction,” but he is still assessing portions of the plan, including how the agency plans to deliver on millions of dollars in promised savings from unspecified “efficiencies.”

The plan is the second adopted by the MTA board this year in an effort to satisfy federal concerns that the transit agency is promising more than it can deliver.

The MTA board in January revised the construction schedule for the subway. That schedule calls for completing an extension to North Hollywood by 2000 but delaying opening of extensions to the Eastside until 2004 and to the mid-city until 2009.

But Linton rejected the earlier plan. He demanded the MTA set up a reserve fund to ensure the agency implements court-ordered bus improvements--now estimated to cost $922 million between now and 2013--and spend $1.6 billion to replace its aging fleet of buses and to pay for cost overruns and funding shortages on the subway.

Federal officials regarded the MTA’s estimates of local sales tax revenues as too optimistic and told the agency to reduce its projections by $2.1 billion between 1999 and 2013. MTA officials stress construction on the east-west Valley line could still get underway in 2007 if tax revenues come in closer to their projections.

The MTA needs to satisfy Linton because his agency can be a key ally in the fight for federal transportation funds. The federal government is helping to pay about half of the $6.1-billion subway.

The plan adopted Wednesday also put construction of the downtown L.A.-to-Pasadena line back on track, opening in 2001, but requires approval of a $54-million loan from the Legislature.

Some board members also expressed concern the MTA is relying on achieving $871 million in savings from the unspecified “efficiencies” over more than a decade. One proposal under consideration is a 25-cent increase in the $1.35 fare to ride the rail lines, effective in late 1998. MTA is prohibited by the court order from raising the cash bus fare until 1999 and the cost of a bus pass until 2000.

But MTA planning chief James de la Loza assured the board that the agency’s assumptions are “significantly more conservative” than they have ever been.

Still, Linda Bohlinger, MTA acting chief executive officer, warned if the MTA receives “significantly less” federal funds for subway construction--half of the requested $100 million, for instance--”then we’ve got a problem.”