MTA Approves $640-Million Budget for Downtown-to-Westside Rail Line

A proposal for light rail service between the Westside and downtown Los Angeles received a substantial boost Thursday when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority adopted a $640-million budget for the first half of its planned Exposition Line.

The plan calls for using mostly local money to construct the line’s first phase, intended as an alternative to driving on the Santa Monica Freeway.

The 9.6-mile route to Culver City would begin at the 7th Street Metro station downtown, head south to USC on one of two proposed routes and continue west on an old train right of way along Exposition Boulevard to the intersection of National and Washington boulevards.

A subsequent phase calls for the line’s extension to Santa Monica.

“This is a project whose time has come,” said county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who sits on the MTA board. The panel unanimously approved the budget and a $500,000 appropriation for engineering work.

Officials hope to begin construction on the line in 2006, but hurdles remain.

The MTA expects to review a final environmental impact report in September. A route still must be chosen for the line’s downtown portion.

Thursday’s vote represented a departure from traditional transit funding.

More often, agencies apply for specially earmarked federal funds, a process that can take years, and match it with local money before starting. But federal officials notified the MTA late last year that the project would probably not receive such funding this year.

By using nearly $400 million in local money, $11 million in state dollars, and about $230 million in other federal funds the MTA expects to have in hand, the agency can complete the line to Culver City within five years instead of seven, said Richard Thorpe, the MTA’s chief capital management officer.

The agency still plans to apply for new federal subsidies and use that money to extend the line to Santa Monica, Thorpe said.

The budget assumes the city of Los Angeles, Culver City and USC will contribute a total of $50 million, but that is not settled.

Culver City Councilwoman Carol Gross said the Westside municipality might not be able to come up with the $5 million that the MTA expects for building the Culver City station, let alone the $25 million to construct it the way the city wants.

The MTA plans to build the station at ground level temporarily and tear it out later to build an elevated track at the intersection if the line is extended to Santa Monica. Culver City wants the station elevated from the start to avoid traffic problems.

If money runs short or Culver City refuses to participate, the line can stop farther east, at La Cienega Boulevard or Vermont Avenue, Thorpe said.

But that could reduce ridership on the line, which is projected to attract 42,000 riders per day from Culver City to downtown by 2020.

Transportation planners have not always hit the mark with ridership estimates. The Gold Line, linking downtown to Pasadena, was projected to have 30,000 riders per weekday but instead carries only about 15,000, largely because the line is slow.

Another concern is that funds currently budgeted for the Exposition Line might be needed to purchase some or all of the 134 buses that the MTA has been ordered to add to its fleet as part of a legal settlement.

The MTA has not yet decided whether to comply with the recent order or appeal it.