This story appears in the 5/18/12 edition of the Pasadena Star-News.

Congress members urge MTA to include funding for Gold Line project to Claremont

Letter to Mayor Villaraigosa and MTA Board

A proposal to extend a half-cent transit sales tax established under Measure R needs to include funding for the Gold Line extension to Claremont, three local members of Congress said in a letter Thursday to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

But MTA staff did not respond to the letter positively.

The letter was sent by Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-Norwalk, Rep. Judy Chu, D-El Monte, and Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena. It urged the MTA board to include funding for the second phase of the Foothill Gold Line light-rail extension, from Azusa to Claremont, in a proposed ballot measure making permanent the transit sales tax, slated for the November ballot.

County Supervisor and MTA board member Mike Antonovich read parts of the letter aloud at a meeting of the MTA Executive Management Committee on Thursday.

Following the reading, Antonovich was told by MTA staff members they they would not include funding for the second phase of the Gold Line extension in the ballot measure.

Napolitano, Chu and Schiff asked the MTA to make a “correction” to its future funding documents that would add the “$764 million needed to complete the voter-mandated project to the county line in Claremont as specified in Measure R.”

“We want to make sure that the gap funding, the $764 million needed to complete the project, gets included in their expenditure plan,” said Habib Balian, CEO of Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension.

Balian said the MTA staff response to the letter Thursday was the first indication that the MTA staff was not considering the second phase of the Foothill Gold Line extension in its plans. The inclusion is particularly important because the MTA has prohibited the Gold Line from pursuing federal “new start” dollars – leaving those for Los Angeles-area subway projects.

Napolitano, Chu and Schiff said they support four regional projects: the Westside Subway, the Regional Connector in downtown L.A., the Crenshaw light-rail Line, and the Foothill Extension of the Gold Line to Claremont as part of a county-wide rail network. And they said the MTA must include all four in the language of the future ballot measure.

The ballot measure would be created by Assembly Bill 1446, which awaits Assembly approval.

The measure would remove the sunset clause from 2008’s Measure R, which is scheduled to end in 2039. By creating a permanent revenue stream, the MTA could sell bonds quicker and move up construction on all four projects.

A.B. 1446 specifies that projects that the agency is working on should be part of the ballot language.

The letter from the three House members was framed as part of an upcoming vote by the MTA board to endorse the bill – deemed crucial for its passage. The letter implied that San Gabriel Valley members of the MTA may not support the measure without the updated project list.

Balian said the issue is quite simple. The entire Pasadena-to-Claremont Foothill Gold Line Extension was included in the Measure R long-range project plan. But the Gold Line received only $810 million, enough to extend it from Sierra Madre Villa station in east Pasadena to the Azusa station near Citrus College and Azusa Pacific University. Construction is underway and the line should be running by 2015.

MTA staffers reportedly told Antonovich that the funding issue for the second phase was “ambiguous.”

“What is not ambiguous is the definition of the project that was included in Measure R, which is from Pasadena to Claremont,” Balian said.

The MTA board’s next meeting is Thursday. The meeting’s agenda was not posted as of press time, and it is not known if an endorsement of A.B. 1446 or an updated project plan will be on the agenda.

steve.scauzillo@sgvn.com

626-962-8811, ext. 2237

This past week crews continued installation of the reinforcing steel inside of the form-work, in preparation for the major concrete pour in June.  Over 500 tons of rebar will be installed to support the main superstructure and cross beam.

The I-210 Bridge formwork is almost ready for concrete. The architectural form-liners are nearly all in place and reinforcing steel is being installed.

Foothillextension.org, the Construction Authority website, has recently been awarded the Communicator Award for Distinction in Government Website Design by the International Academy of Visual Arts (IAVA). This is the second award for the website, which was launched last year.

Once more, we thank Pasadena Advertising for its part in designing our award winning website.

The Construction Authority Board of Directors will be holding a meeting on Wednesday, May 09, 2012 at at 7:00 p.m. The meeting is open to the public and will be held at the Arcadia City Hall, Council Chambers, 240 W. Huntington Drive, Arcadia, CA 91007. Click here for more information or to view the meeting agenda and reports.

The following editorial appeared in the 5/6/12 edition of the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.

Robert Rector: L.A. gets railroaded at last

IN a scene from that wonderful movie “L.A. Story,” which probed the foibles of life in our merry megalopolis, Steve Martin emerges from his house, gets in his car and drives to his neighbor’s home next door.

Funny? Sure. True? Exaggerated, perhaps, but not far from reality.

Let’s face it, we have always been in love with our cars and are loath to abandon them in favor of public transportation.

There are reasons for that. First, we were blessed with the best freeway system in the world which, on a good day, could whisk us anywhere in Southern California with a minimum of fuss.

Second, we live in a place that defines the word sprawl. It forces us to go to great lengths to go great lengths. People here measure distance in time, not mileage. Mileage is irrelevant on the eastbound 210 at 5 p.m.

Third, for years the alternative to the auto was a fleet of dirty, diesel-belching buses overseen by uncaring bureaucrats whose real purpose seemed to be to alienate the public.

Now, we are on the cusp of change. Our torrid affair with the automobile may be turning cold. And alternatives abound.

To illustrate: I was sitting in an endless traffic jam on the 101 one day when I looked to my right and saw a guy in slick, turbo-powered, six-figure Porsche. He was wearing racing gloves, the kind you’d don to drive in the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. It looked particularly goofy since this guy never got out of first gear.
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The point is that it’s hard to love your car, even a sleek and sexy one, when you spend your days awash in a sea of red taillights. No matter how posh the ride, you’re just wasting a sizable chunk of your life and mental health while sucking up five-dollar gas.

Now, however, we have a bustling, thriving downtown that is home to a state-of-the-art subway/light rail/bus system that can seamlessly and cheaply transport people to where they live or work or play.

Witness the new Expo Line, which runs from downtown past Staples Center, L.A. Live and USC to Culver City and eventually to Santa Monica.

And there’s more to come.

Within the next decade, our very own Gold Line will expand eastward to Azusa. A new subway route through downtown Los Angeles will link the Metro Blue Line, Gold Line and Expo Line. The Purple Line will run from Union Station through MacArthur Park along Wilshire Boulevard to Westwood.

Voila! Access to sporting events, major universities, museums, nightlife, even the beach, without backing your car out of the driveway.

We’re becoming just like New York, London and Paris. We’re just a century late.

Will people use it? The answer appears to be yes. Metro bus and rail ridership has jumped during the first two months of this year, thanks in part to soaring gas prices. The Metro Gold Line from downtown to Pasadena saw the biggest spike: up nearly 22 percent over boardings from a year earlier. Orange Line commuter traffic also carried significantly more passengers than a year ago, up by 18 percent, and the Blue and Green lines also drew more commuters.

From which we can extrapolate that a new generation of commuters are beginning to shun Sig Alerts and budget-busting gas prices in favor of clean, sophisticated public transit.

For those of us of a certain age who have lived in and loved Los Angeles for decades, it is a development both astounding and bittersweet.

Astounding in that a subway/light-rail system was talked about for decades and seemed as remote as time travel. Now, it is actually up and running.

Bittersweet in that we once had a great rail system that served every corner of Southern California. We’ve spent billions just to get us back to where we were almost a century ago.

Back then, we had the Pacific Electric Railroad, the largest such railway in the world, connecting Los Angeles with San Bernardino County, Riverside County and Orange County with 1,000 miles of track. We also had the Yellow Cars which serviced central Los Angeles and surrounding communities.

It didn’t last. It was felled by corporate skullduggery, poor planning and a region that grew so fast it couldn’t keep up with itself.

General Motors and a number of other companies bought and dismantled our streetcars and electric trains, then sold local governments buses which they manufactured.

Following World War II, politicians decided to construct a web of freeways across the region because it was seen as a better solution than a new mass transit system or an upgrade of the Pacific Electric.

Ironically, congestion also helped spell the end to commuter rail. Most of the Red and Yellow cars ran on city streets and the region was becoming so congested because of the post-war population boom, the trains found it impossible to run on time.

It was a sad and costly chapter in our history. Let’s hope we grab on to the future while it is there for the taking.

Robert Rector is a former editor with the Pasadena Star-News and Los Angeles Times.

Click here, or on the image above, to watch this two-minute time-lapse video of the erection of the temporary false-work for the I-210 Gold Line Bridge Project.  It was produced to provide an overview of this very challenging element of the project and to give the public a rare look at the two-month activity.

Let us know what you think of the video by leaving us a message on Facebook at facebook.com/GoldLineBridge.

The following article appeared in the 4/28/12 edition of the Pasadena Star-News.

State senators, Gold Line officials lobby for funds to fill foothill extension funding gap

By Brenda Gazzar

With a $764 million funding gap facing the Azusa-to-Claremont segment of the Gold Line, state senators are joining the Gold Line Construction Authority’s effort to make sure the Foothill Extension project is not left out in the cold as it vies for potential transit funds.

The Construction Authority board this week approved an updated expense plan and timeline identifying the cost for the entire 23-mile Pasadena-to-Claremont extension as nearly $1.6 billion, of which $810 million has already been allocated, with full completion planned for 2021.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) – the county’s transportation planning agency – has already funded the Gold Line’s 11.5-mile, $750 million Pasadena-to-Azusa segment with Measure R revenues. However, the 11.5-mile, $780 million Azusa-to-Claremont segment of the extension has yet to be funded.

On behalf of the San Gabriel Valley Legislative Caucus, state Senators Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, and Bob Huff, R-Walnut, urged the Metro board of directors in a letter Wednesday to include the the Azusa-to-Claremont segment in its updated expense plan.

“I want to make sure the San Gabriel Valley gets its fair share of transportation funding (from Metro),” Hernandez said Friday. “That’s why we sent the letter, to make sure we get (the Gold Line) to Claremont … It seems like most of the money would go to Los Angeles or to the West side” otherwise.

Doug Tessitor, chairman of the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority and a Glendora councilman, agreed.

“We are basically trying to make sure that Metro and everybody else that is interested recognizes that our total funding requirements to complete the Gold Line extension go all the way to Claremont,” he said. “We need about another $700 million dollars to get that accomplished.”

Construction Authority officials hope the bill of Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-West Hollywood, becomes law so that voters in November can consider an indefinite extension of Measure R’s half-cent sales tax that Metro would use to accelerate funding for transit projects.

There was not enough money in the original Measure R approved in 2008, which is set to sunset in 2039, to fund the full needs of the Gold Line and all other transit projects in the county, Tessitor said.

Now that politicians are talking about extending the measure indefinitely, “we need to make sure (Metro and voters) are aware that there’s a shortfall in our project,” Tessitor said.

Metro officials said they recognize the measure calls for building the line to Claremont. “If and when additional funding becomes available, the Metro board will consider a Construction Authority request for funding,” a spokeswoman said in a statement.

Metro board member John Fasana, also the mayor of Duarte, said it’s still unclear what the extension of Measure R would mean in real terms for transit projects.

“The Gold Line (Foothill Extension) is certainly one that’s always been near and dear to my heart but I know there are other projects in the San Gabriel Valley that there is interest in,” including the Alameda-Corridor East project and extending the Gold Line from its East L.A. terminus to cities such as South El Monte or Montebello. “We need to look at that.”

But not all local politicians are sold on the idea of the half-cent sales tax extension. Sierra Madre Councilman Chris Koerber, a financial planner, said he’s believes all taxes put to voters should have a sunset clause.

“Whenever you have a tax that does not have a sunset clause, instead of becoming a cap, it becomes a floor and expenses run right up because there’s money available,” he said.

Having a sunset clause in a tax, Koerber said, ensures that new residents will have the right to exercise their opinion on the matter periodically by voting.

Tessitor said if the measure is not extended, the Construction Authority will have to aggressively seek funding from “virtually every source that’s available up to and including the federal government, the state government and obviously our local sales tax revenue.”

Taxes paid by San Gabriel Valley residents would be the most logical place to get the needed funding, he said.

Construction Authority officials contend that the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension is the only project that owns the right of way and has such a high level of support.

It’s anticipated the gap funding would be needed starting in 2016 with construction of the extension completed in 2021. The Pasadena-to-Azusa segment is scheduled to be completed in 2015.

Environmental clearance for the Azusa-to-Claremont segment is expected later this year, according to Construction Authority officials. Preliminary engineering and design for that segment will take a few years to complete before construction can begin.

Crews install rubber form liner along the inside walls of the structure. These elements of the form are what will result in the architectural reliefs (texture) along the outside of the superstructure once the concrete is placed.

The Construction Authority has launched a new dedicated Facebook page for the I-210 Gold Line Bridge. Located at www.facebook.com/GoldLineBridge, this page provides followers with construction notices, advisories, videos, photo galleries, renderings and much more.

Coined as the “Gateway to the San Gabriel Valley” for its scale and artistic merit, this iconic 584-linear foot bridge is the first component of the 11.5-mile Foothill Extension from Pasadena to Azusa to move from design to construction.