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Under The Bus: MTC Shafts AC Transit
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V Smoothe
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Last Updated on February, 19 2009 at 01:25 PM
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| Next week, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission will vote on how
the agency will distribute the money it receives from the American
Recovery & Investment Act. A proposed spending plan shown to the
public last week drew criticism from transit advocates and some
commissioners, who said it would squander too much money on dubious
capital projects while not doing enough to help local transit agencies
like AC Transit maintain services during a historic financial crisis. |
Next week, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission will vote on how the agency will distribute the money it receives from the American Recovery & Investment Act. A proposed spending plan shown to the public last week drew criticism from transit advocates and some commissioners, who said it would squander too much money on dubious capital projects while not doing enough to help local transit agencies like AC Transit maintain services during a historic financial crisis.
Federal stimulus package money for Bay Area transportation projects will flow through two agencies - the MTC and Caltrans. Although most of the money for road improvements will go to Caltrans, the MTC will receive roughly $150 million for local projects. Public transit funds for the Bay Area will flow exclusively through the MTC.
The MTC expects to receive roughly $340 million in stimulus package funds for local transit. Reductions in sales tax revenue and the elimination of payments from the State have placed local transit operators in crisis mode, creating expected operating deficits of 8-10 percent for Bay Area agencies. For these operators, an influx of Federal stimulus funding that would keep trains and buses running could be a Godsend. But the MTC’s proposal for using the funds would direct almost half the money away from system preservation, allocating $145 million instead to two costly capital projects.
Oakland Airport Connector
BART’s Oakland Airport Connector is a proposed 3.2-mile elevated tramway that would ferry passengers from the Coliseum BART station to the Oakland Airport. Since the agency did not have enough funding to finance the project in full, they began seeking private partners to help build the rail line. All three interested parties dropped out of the project last year, citing concerns about profitability. At the time, BART officials said they would drop plans for the elevated train and begin exploring more affordable ways of providing a reliable connection between the station and the airport, such as dedicated bus lanes.
With the influx of Federal stimulus money, the MTC is now proposing to revive the $529 million project. $288 million has already been allocated, and the MTC believes they can provide $241 million in additional funding, including $70 million from stimulus funds, leaving BART to come up with the final $71 million required to build the connector.
Transbay Terminal Train Box
The other capital project in the MTC proposal is a train box at the new Transbay Terminal being built in San Francisco. Although construction of a San Francisco-Los Angeles High Speed Rail system is not likely to happen in the forseeable future, the passage of $10 billion in high speed rail bonds bonds with Proposition 1A in November means the train will eventually be a reality. Once the train is finally built, it will need to have a place to go inside the terminal.
The Train Box project would fund construction of a space for the future train underneath the new tower as it is built. The agency argues that building the box now will save money in the long run. Designs for the box are not complete, the MTC is still working with the High Speed Rail Authority and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority to determine what the box will look like.
Leftovers for local transit operators
The remaining $195 million in funds will be distributed among local transit agencies for system preservation. Both AC Transit and Santa Clara County’s VTA objected to the proposal to spend a large portion of stimulus funds on capital projects instead of system preservation, arguing that the funds are desperately needed to continue operations, keeping bus drivers employed and transporting people to jobs. MTC staff responded to the objections by saying that operating subsidies for transit agencies were intentionally left out of the stimulus package, and that the agencies cannot expect a stimulus every year. AC Transit staff argued that one extra year of maintaining the agency’s operations will give the agency time to address the sudden deficit.
Most of the public speakers at last week’s meeting argued for an increased share of the funding to go to local transit operators, specifically AC Transit, questioning the feasibility and immediate economic impact of the Train Box and Airport Connector, with one speaker noting, “This economic stimulus money was not intended to build a terminal for a high speed train that doesn’t even exist.”
Commissioners echoed the speakers’ concerns about both the Train Box and the Airport Connector. Santa Clara County Commissioner Ken Yeager wondered if it was prudent to allocate money for the Train Box when the plans aren’t complete and Caltrain still hasn’t identified their alignment, and suggested that perhaps it would be better to invest capital funds into electrifying Caltrain, which would have an immediate benefit, than to build a box that will sit empty for several years. Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, who represents the cities of Alameda County, worried about the feasibility of the Airport Connector, noting that it had already failed to pencil out using private funds, and suggested the money would be better spent assisting local transit operators who have had their funding eliminated by the State.
Marin County representative Stephen Kinsey worried about the pace of the plans for the Train Box, explaining that a local improvement project he had been involved with that had been hastily planned in order to qualify for funding ended up costing the County more money in the long run, and that rushing the Train Box before the details are ready could create a “haste makes waste” situation.
Vote on package next Wednesday
The MTC will approve a spending plan for the stimulus funds on Wednesday, February 25th. Because the final allocations in the stimulus package were not complete at the time of the Programming & Allocations Committee meeting when this proposal was announced, it is possible that the final recommendations will be somewhat different. Most notably, the final version of the stimulus package included $8 billion in money for high speed rail, some of which might be available for the Train Box.
If the MTC decides to allocate the money to capital project at the expense of local operators, the projects will need to be finalized by June in order to qualify for stimulus funding. Since both the Airport Connector and the Train Box are still being planned, there is a real possibility neither will even be capable of meeting the June deadline, in which case the funds will be directed back to the operators for system preservation. |
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OAKLAND
POLITICS
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