Eastside Should Consider Busway, U.S. Official Says

Stepping into a local political minefield, Federal Transit Administrator Gordon Linton said Monday that Latino elected officials who threatened to derail the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s federal funding should consider a busway instead of a subway to the Eastside because there may be no money to build anything else in the near future.

“At this point in time, there is not a way that [the MTA] can build a rail system on the Eastside or Mid-City within the available resources,” said Linton, who was in Los Angeles for a transportation summit.

Linton, who ordered the MTA to prepare a recovery plan to put its fiscal house in order, said he believes the agency is moving in the right direction.

The MTA board is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the plan, which must be approved by Washington before the transit agency receives federal funds for the subway extension to North Hollywood.

MTA officials tried last week to get Latino officials to support giving the transit agency latitude to redirect federal transportation dollars from subway construction to any “fixed-guideway” project, perhaps a busway or aboveground trolley line. But the officials worry that they would be giving up any possibility of a subway extension to the transit-dependent Eastside without knowing what they will get in return.

In an interview, Linton said the MTA must work to reassure Latino elected officials that “their needs are going to be met.”

“It really boils down to a lack of trust,” he said.

Referring to the Eastside representatives, Linton said, “I think the concern is that I have something now that I can hold on to. Until you give me something else, I’m not going to let it go.”

But Linton said of Latino officials, that by failing to allow for “maximum flexibility” in spending federal funds, “you cut off the opportunities for those on the Eastside and the Mid-City to get some transit service.”

Reached in Washington, Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) said: “Until it’s explained to those of us who are being asked to lobby for federal funds why we must go with one alternative [funding the North Hollywood subway extension] vs. any other alternative for the 10 million people in the county, we’re not going to be supportive.”

Linton planned to meet with MTA chief Julian Burke to discuss the recovery effort. Burke plans to complete a study by October on ways to bring mass transit to the Eastside and other neighborhoods, but Latino officials worry that there will be no money to deliver a project to the Eastside for several years.

Burke said Monday: “The controversy that currently exists . . . is about an element of the restructuring plan that was not included in the first draft, kind of naively I guess by me. . . . It has to do with what do you . . . do to try to comply with whatever Congress needs to turn on the North Hollywood spigot. It should have had more vision in it. I think belatedly we are catching up with that.”