Funds for East L.A. Rail Back on Track

A congressman who could have blocked federal funding for the planned extension of a light rail line into East Los Angeles lifted his objections Wednesday to the high-profile project.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority staff and local elected officials were worried that Rep. Ernest J. Istook Jr. (R-Okla.), who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee on transportation, would hold up the federal grant agreement. With construction bids set to expire next Wednesday, officials feared they would have to reopen bidding and pay millions more for the $898-million project.

In a letter to the Federal Transit Administration, Istook said talks with the MTA and members of Congress from Southern California addressed many of his concerns. Istook noted that the MTA reduced its first-year request to $60 million, down from $80 million.

“We have made significant progress,” Istook wrote. But he also warned: “Nothing in this letter should be construed as guaranteeing this project a specific sum for fiscal year 2005 or for any other year.”

MTA officials are waiting for the Federal Transit Administration to sign the $490-million grant agreement. The MTA has made the six-mile Gold Line extension from Union Station to Atlantic Boulevard in East Los Angeles its No. 1 priority.

An FTA spokesman declined to comment on the letter.

County Supervisor and MTA board member Gloria Molina, who oversees the Eastside area, said, “It’s my understanding they’re in the process to sign the full-funding grant agreement.”

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), a member of Istook’s subcommittee, said the congressman “was most impressed by the fact that the Southwest, namely Southern California, has been underfunded in the past compared to the Northeast” in terms of new light rail projects.

Manuel Criollo with the Bus Riders Union, said the rail project will come at the expense of “400,000 bus riders and the entire mobility of this county.”

MTA officials said federal funding for the rail project could not be used for bus service.