SHOCKER! MTA REVIVES SUBWAY - FOR WESTSIDE MOVE COMES FOUR YEARS AFTER VOTERS BLOCKED DIVERSION OF SALES TAX FUNDS.Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer Despite a voter-approved ban on local funding, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board agreed on Thursday to revive subway construction by seeking federal funds Federal Funds Funds deposited to regional Federal Reserve Banks by commercial banks, including funds in excess of reserve requirements. Notes: These non-interest bearing deposits are lent out at the Fed funds rate to other banks unable to meet overnight reserve to study an extension to the Westside. The decision, coming with little discussion just four years after county residents voted to end the use of the 1 percent transportation sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. add-on for future subway construction, shocked advocates of improved bus services and better roads. The MTA (1) (Message Transfer Agent or Mail Transfer Agent) The store and forward part of a messaging system. See messaging system. (2) See M Technology Association. 1. (messaging) MTA - Message Transfer Agent. board authorized officials to ask Congress to fund environmental studies to extend the Metro Red Line subway three miles from Wilshire Boulevard-Western Avenue to Fairfax Avenue Fairfax Avenue is a street on north central Los Angeles, California. It runs from La Cienega Boulevard (which separates the Westside from the central part of the city) with Culver City at its southern end to Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood on its northern end. , within walking distance of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, also known as LACMA, is the official and world-renowned art museum of the County of Los Angeles, California, located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. and the city's hot new shopping center shopping center, a concentration of retail, service, and entertainment enterprises designed to serve the surrounding region. The modern shopping center differs from its antecedents—bazaars and marketplaces—in that the shops are usually amalgamated into , The Grove, developed by Police Commission President Rick Caruso. U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman Henry Arnold Waxman (born September 12, 1939 in Los Angeles, California) is an American politician. He has represented California's At-large congressional district (map) in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1975. , who got a federal ban on building the subway into the Fairfax area because of the risk of explosions and fire from natural gas deposits, dismissed the MTA plan as ``not serious.'' But other subway opponents were outraged. ``This is a complete betrayal of the commitment the MTA made to the San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. when it decided not to build the subway anywhere because they could not afford to do it,'' said Richard Katz, co-chairman of the San Fernando Valley Transportation Strike Task Force. ``They will sink billions of dollars into subways on the Westside. That will require matching local dollars that would have been spent ... in the Valley.'' Revival of the subway plan came at the same meeting in which the MTA board agreed to expand rapid bus service in the Valley and elsewhere in the county and to create regional governing boards with limited authority to oversee bus service in the Valley and in other local sectors. At the same time, the board received a report showing it would need $5.8 billion over the next 10 to 20 years to repair and widen roads, not including freeways, throughout the county. The subway proposal includes a provision to try to lift the ban on subway construction in the Fairfax area. Waxman, D-Los Angeles, got the legislation approved to reroute the Metro Red Line subway around the area after seeping seep intr.v. seeped, seep·ing, seeps 1. To pass slowly through small openings or pores; ooze. 2. To enter, depart, or become diffused gradually. n. 1. methane gas exploded at a Ross Dress For Less store near the proposed Fairfax station. ``No one from the MTA has contacted him about it,'' said Phil Schiliro, chief of staff for Waxman. ``He doesn't regard it as a very serious effort.'' MTA officials hope federal funds will help them determine whether new technology would allow construction of a safe tunnel in the area. ``If Congress considers renewal of the multiyear federal transportation funding bill, the board has asked them to give us some funds for an environmental review extending the subway west to Fairfax,'' MTA spokesman Marc Littman said. ``We are a far cry away from coming back to the board with a proposal to extend the subway anywhere.'' Littman said numerous city drains have been built in the area since the explosion, including ones in front of Ross Dress For Less, and that no problems have been encountered. ``Some of the buildings there are powered by methane gas,'' Littman said. ``There is new technology for tunneling that makes tunneling through methane gas areas safer.'' With billions already going to rail projects and an estimate of more than $1 billion to be spent by 2006 to comply with a federal consent decree A settlement of a lawsuit or criminal case in which a person or company agrees to take specific actions without admitting fault or guilt for the situation that led to the lawsuit. A consent decree is a settlement that is contained in a court order. to reduce bus overcrowding overcrowding overcrowding of animal accommodation. Many countries now publish codes of practice which define what the appropriate volumetric allowances should be for each species of animal when they are housed indoors. Breaches of these codes is overcrowding. , there is little money left to fill potholes and resurface re·sur·face v. re·sur·faced, re·sur·fac·ing, re·sur·fac·es v.tr. To cover with a new surface: resurfacing a road; resurfaced the floor. v.intr. and widen roads to relieve traffic gridlock Gridlock A government, business or institution's inability to function at a normal level due either to complex or conflicting procedures within the administrative framework or to impending change in the business. . Subway opponents have criticized the MTA over the years for spending $4.5 billion on the 17.4-mile Red Line subway from downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The sprawling, multi-centered megacity is such that its downtown core is often considered just another district like Hollywood or to North Hollywood, more than $100 million on a plan abandoned in 1998 to build a subway from downtown to Boyle Heights and $14 million on an abandoned plan to build a mid-city subway extension. In December, the MTA voted to build a $760 million Eastside light-rail line. The MTA board voted Thursday to spend $16 million for preliminary design of the Mid-City/Exposition light-rail line. The San Fernando Valley, long promised a subway line to Warner Center, agreed to accept an at-grade busway after subway construction was halted. ``They are voting to spend millions of dollars for studies of rail systems that will never be built at a time when they have $5.8 billion in unmet road needs,'' said transit critic John Walsh
John E. Walsh (born December 26, 1945 in Auburn, New York) is the host of the TV show America's Most Wanted. . ``Unsafe roads kill people. ``When the board was told they have $5.8 billion in unmet road needs, they shrugged their shoulders and voted to spend $16 million for preliminary engineering studies for a rail system that is unfunded. To me, they are rail junkies. It's an orgy of rail planning that is costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.'' MTA Planning Area Director Renee Berlin said the MTA conducted a survey of the cities in the county and discovered that the cities currently had a $775 million backlog in projects to improve and widen major roads in the county, not including freeways. Over the next 10 to 20 years, $5.8 billion is needed to fix and widen roads, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the report. Even with the $1 billion a year raised by two half-cent sales tax measures voters approved in 1980 and 1990 to fund transportation projects, Berlin said, the MTA needs more money to fix roads. Littman said much of the funds for rail and subway projects are earmarked by state and federal lawmakers for specific rail and other transportation projects and can't be used to improve roads. ``The moneys committed to rail are not available for other projects,'' Littman said. ``It's not like the MTA could take it and put it into buses, highways and streets.'' Littman said the MTA is seeking federal approval to use $495 million originally earmarked for the Eastside subway for a less-expensive light-rail line to the Eastside. Katz said Congress won't give the MTA any money that doesn't have to be matched by local dollars. ``They will steal from projects in the Valley to build a multibillion-dollar subway system through an area where Congress has already said it shouldn't be built,'' Katz said. ``It's just another example of the MTA denying services to the people paying taxes today so their small clique (mathematics) clique - A maximal totally connected subgraph. Given a graph with nodes N, a clique C is a subset of N where every node in C is directly connected to every other node in C (i.e. C is totally connected), and C contains all such nodes (C is maximal). of construction builders can continue to build subways. ``This is bad news for the Valley one more time. If Mayor (James) Hahn is serious about his long-term commitment to the Valley, he ought to stand up for Valley interests and stop this from happening. It will be interesting to see if he can stand up to the political interests and say no.'' CAPTION(S): 2 maps Map: (1) Proposed subway extension to Wilshire/Fairfax (2) METRO RAIL Gregg Miller/Daily News |
|
||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion