Metro Rail Wins $870-Million OK : House-Senate Panel Approves Funds for Construction in Mass Transit Bill

WASHINGTON —  The controversial Los Angeles Metro Rail project won a major victory Friday as congressional negotiators approved an $8.3-billion mass transit measure that would provide the commuter line $870 million in federal construction funds over the next eight years.

Metro Rail backers had hoped to get all $870 million for the first and second segments of the ambitious 18- to 20-mile rail system in the next five years. But spreading the money out over three additional years was regarded by lobbyists and other supporters as a minor concession.

“It’s a victory,” exclaimed Andrew Valentine, an aide to California Sen. Alan Cranston, who was a member of the House-Senate conference committee that took Friday’s action.

‘Complete Insanity’

However, former California Rep. Bobbi Fiedler, one of the most vocal opponents of Metro Rail, called the negotiators’ decision “complete insanity.”

The compromise measure is half of a multibillion-dollar highway and mass transit financing authorization bill expected to be considered before the full House as early as Wednesday. No major changes are expected to be made by lawmakers in either house.

The same compromise, if approved by both houses, contains highway provisions that would allow Orange County to have one of seven so-called “demonstration” toll roads in the United States, ending a previous ban on tolls for federally funded highway projects.

Although the legislation does not designate a specific highway, county transportation officials said the bill’s five-year deadline for the start of construction limits the possibilities to one route: the planned San Joaquin Hills roadway between Newport Beach and San Juan Capistrano.

However, the toll road concept is unpopular among Sacramento lawmakers, who have authority to block the imposition of tolls on state-funded projects.

The compromise highway provisions allow seven toll road projects in the United States, according to James McConnell, Orange County’s Washington lobbyist. Three would be chosen by the secretary of transportation and one each would be built in Florida, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Orange County.

“We’re limiting it to four states--Orange County is practically a state anyhow,” U.S. Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.) said during the conference committee debate, according to McConnell.

The same bill allows California to count the market value of freeway land (rights-of-way) donated by the Irvine Co. and other firms in order to fulfill the federal requirement for state matching funds.

McConnell said that the compromise language adopted this past week would limit toll roads to 35% federal funding, compared with 70% for regular highways. Developer fees and donated rights-of-way are expected to account for 50% of the $330-million cost of the San Joaquin Hills highway. McConnell and county officials said tolls would account for the remaining 15%.

It is unclear how much resistance the entire bill, but especially the Metrorail portion, will get from President Reagan. The Administration has repeatedly expressed its opposition to Metro Rail, just as it has opposed federal funding for every other start-up of a mass transit project.

Also, the President has threatened to veto the overall transportation package if its price tag exceeds $77 billion. With the agreement on Metro Rail funding, the bill’s cost would be between $80 billion and $90 billion.

While key lawmakers would not say whether they had enough votes committed to override a presidential veto, congressional supporters expressed confidence that there would be sufficient support to protect the measure.

The highway segment of the bill cleared a separate congressional conference committee three days earlier, although a price tag for each provision in that category has not yet been set.

The House vote next week will be on authorizing Congress to fund the mass transit and highway projects. Another vote will have to be taken later to specifically appropriate the funds for them, but key congressmen said that should be a routine process.

4.4-Mile Segment

The first segment of the Metro Rail line, on which construction has started, goes 4.4 miles, from Union Station to MacArthur Park. The next section remains to be routed.

Despite the tentative go-ahead to build the estimated first nine miles of Metro Rail, the line continues to meet stiff resistance in Southern California.

Critics of the rail line linking downtown with the San Fernando Valley continue to argue that the subway portions of Metro Rail are dangerous to workers and riders, even though the initial leg of the project has gotten a clean bill of health from environmental and safety specialists. And the Office of Management and Budget has estimated that Metro Rail will cost more than $190 million per mile, making it the most expensive mass transit project ever.

Local governments would bear most of the cost of the rail line--at least $3.6 billion, according to the most recent estimates, if no more federal aid is approved. But among the congressional negotiators deciding the fate of this phase of the project, the concerns were more for precedent and pride than cost and health dangers.

As the original House version was written, the distribution schedule for Metro Rail funds was to have been set up in advance, with no flexibility for lawmakers charged with appropriating funds to thousands of federal projects. Such earmarking of federal funds is highly unusual on mass transit projects and triggered heated debate, according to congressional aides who were present.

To quell complaints about the rigid plan, the negotiators agreed to a complicated distribution formula for Metro Rail.

Essentially, the project isn’t guaranteed a specific amount of money between now and the end of 1991. But it must receive some federal funds by 1991 and it is guaranteed receipt of the full $870 million by 1994.

No Comment by RTD

A spokesman for the Southern California Rapid Transit District, the local agency in charge of the project, said the RTD would have no immediate comment on Friday’s development. “Until it formally gets through the Congress, we consider it premature to comment,” Marc Littman said.

Fiedler said that although she no longer can influence the construction of the project in Congress, she is continuing to fight it through a statewide group in Southern California seeking to prevent Proposition A tax money from going to Metro Rail. Proposition A authorized an extra half-cent-per-dollar sales tax for local transit projects, including Metro Rail. “I am sensing growing opposition (in Southern California) to this project,” she said. “I don’t care how much money Washington throws at it, I am certain it will never be built. At every turn it is costing more.”

Estimates now put the project’s cost at up to $4.5 billion, up $1 billion from early estimates.