BRAKES SLAMMED ON 405 HOV LANE STATE OFFICIALS CUT PROJECT FROM LIST.

Byline: HARRISON SHEPPARD

Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO -- California transportation officials cut more than $1 billion worth of freeway projects Friday that had been sought for Los Angeles County -- including a badly needed car-pool lane for the 405 -- as the state gears up to begin doling out billions of dollars in bond revenues.

The staff of the California Transportation Commission proposed just $327 million for the region -- far short of the $1.8 billion local MTA officials had sought and the $1.5 billion that Caltrans had recommended.

And the staff urged that a key project for the northbound San Diego Freeway not receive any funds in the first round of allocations of $19.9 billion in voter-approved transportation bonds.

The move was a grim surprise for Los Angeles transportation officials and activists, who last month were cheered when the project was included on a short list recommended by Caltrans staffers.

"(Friday's) recommendations by the CTC are an insult to the people of L.A. County," said county Supervisor Gloria Molina, chairwoman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board.

"Twenty-eight percent of California's residents live in L.A. County and we are burdened with one-third of the state's congestion. Yet under the CTC's proposal, we will receive less than 12 percent of the funding currently available. This is unacceptable."

Decision Tuesday

The commission will meet Tuesday to consider recommendations and make its final decision on which projects to fund.

The panel could override its staff recommendations, but local officials fear that federal funding could be jeopardized for the 405 project, which had been authorized for federal matching funds based on a tight timeline.

That requirement led to the project receiving special authorization from the state Legislature to follow an alternative construction method called design-build.

MTA officials said Friday that transportation commission staffers might have misunderstood the construction timelines involved in the design-build process.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and other city officials are expected to lobby the commission next week in Sacramento. A group of lawmakers from L.A. also has begun circulating a letter of protest to the commission.

"The recommendations are severely shortsighted, as any one of the 360,000 commuters who use the 405 every day would verify," said Matt Szabo, a Villaraigosa spokesman. "The people of Los Angeles voted for the bond in good faith that the promises of traffic relief would be kept."

The project involves building a high-occupancy-vehicle lane for a 10-mile stretch along the northbound 405 between the 10 and 101 freeways.

The total cost of the project is $950 million. MTA officials had sought, and expected to receive, $730 million in bond revenues, as recommended last month by the Caltrans staff.

Caltrans and the transportation commission, however, are separate agencies with separate staffs that each issue their own recommendations for project funding.

Two meetings ahead

Ultimately, the nine governor-appointed commissioners will vote on the final package and submit it for legislative approval.

At its next two meetings -- Tuesday in Sacramento and Feb. 28 in Orange County -- the CTC is scheduled to allocate up to $4.5 billion from Proposition 1B.

The money represents the portion of the bond known as the Corridor Mobility Improvement Account and specifically targets efforts to ease traffic congestion.

But commission staffers decided to recommend allocating $2.8 billion statewide from the account, saying many of the other projects were not ready for funding.

Staffers said they believed the 405 project would be ready to start construction in 2011 -- a relatively late date compared with some of the other projects that are vying for bond funding.

But MTA officials said the staff may have misunderstood the project, and that the application indicated that construction would begin in 2009.

Commission Executive Director John Barna said the staff had a tight deadline to review and make its recommendations on the list of 149 projects.

He said any misunderstandings about timelines and details could be resolved at the commission hearing Tuesday.

"Based on the information we had, we were concerned about the delivery risks," Barna said. "If in fact those risks can be reduced by the MTA or Caltrans, I think the commission staff and probably the commission would take a look at the project in an entirely different light."

The commission staff recommendation did, however, seek to restore funding for another project in the San Fernando Valley that had been left off Caltrans' short list.

Staffers agreed with a request for $73 million to fund construction of a car-pool lane on the Golden State Freeway between the 134 and the 170. That 10-mile project is expected to cost $606 million.

Still, Brendan Huffman, president of the San Fernando Valley Industry and Commerce Association, said the group was disappointed by the commission's recommendations.

"Both the I-5 and 405 car-pool lanes need to be built," Huffman said. "The I-5 car-pool lane has a much smaller price tag than the 405, but the Sepulveda Pass should be on the list too. It's miserable."

Highway 138 snub

Another local project that was left off the list was improvements to Highway 138 in the Antelope Valley.

The MTA had sought $110 million for two segments of the project, but the staff rejected both requests, saying there could be other potential sources of state funds.

"I am astonished," said Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-West Hollywood, whose district includes the 405. "The utter failure of the CTC to even bother to contact Caltrans or the MTA to make an intelligent decision is unbelievable to me.

"It places federal funding in jeopardy.

"(But) I don't consider this a done deal," Feuer added. "And I'm going to do everything I can to fight to get this project funded."

harrison.sheppard(at)dailynews.com

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Map:

Proposed 405 Freeway northbound car-pool lane

SOURCE: Caltrans

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