Where federal New Starts dollars are going in FY 2011 — hint, it’s not Los Angeles County

President Obama on Monday released his budget for fiscal year 2011, including his recommendations for transportation funding.

The chart above, produced by Metro, shows how Obama officials want to dole out money from the federal New Starts program that helps local areas pay for big transit projects. The gist of it: The blue areas get a lot of money. The non-blue areas do not. Los Angeles County is a non-blue area.

I posted here last week that the Federal Transit Administration recently denied Metro’s request for $77 million in New Starts funds in the federal budget to help pay for preliminary engineering work on the Westside Subway Extension and Downtown Regional Connector projects. The reason: the projects haven’t yet been designated as official New Starts projects, although FTA officials are working with Metro on the complex application process.

As a result, the FY 2011 budget has no New Starts money for Los Angeles County, the most heavily populated county in the United States, with 9.86 million people.

The above chart, and another posted after the jump, shows that in FY 2011 money is going to three projects in the New York metro area, three light rail lines in the Denver area, a light rail line in Honolulu, a pair of light rail lines in Houston and a light rail line and commuter rail project in the Salt Lake City area, among others. Even the ski town of Aspen, Colo., is benefiting, with Small Starts (a program for smaller projects) helping pay for a bus rapid transit project in the Roaring Fork Valley to the north.
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Feds — for now — delay providing money for subway and connector engineering

Federal officials have denied a request by Metro to provide $77.6 million in the coming year’s federal budget to be used for preliminary engineering on the Westside Subway Extension and Downtown Regional Connector projects. At the same time, federal officials say they are diligently working with Metro to advance planning on both projects.

Here’s a link to a post I wrote last month about the request from Metro CEO Art Leahy. The budget, written by the Obama administration, is set to be released Feb. 1.

The letter is posted after the jump and is from Federal Transit Administration chief Peter Rogoff, who wrote that from the FTA’s standpoint neither the subway or connector projects is far enough long in the environmental review process to receive federal funding.

Metro is seeking a so-called “full-funding grant agreement” from the FTA’s New Starts program for the subway and connector projects. In plain English, that’s basically a request for the feds to pick up some of the cost of the projects from New Starts, the federal program that helps pay for big, pricey transit projects.

Problem is, the subway-connector projects are not yet officially New Starts recipients. Metro officials were hopeful to get New Starts money since in advance of that happening, but now that doesn’t appear likely in the 2011 budget. Metro officials say they will explore other funding options to pay for the preliminary engineering work, including seeking funding from Congress in the in the fiscal year 2011 appropriations cycle.

In the meantime, planning efforts for both the subway and connector projects is ongoing. Here’s a link to a recent post updating subway planning efforts.
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Leahy to LaHood: let’s talk New Starts!

This item led Metro CEO’s daily email memo to agency staffers on Wednesday:

Today, I wrote to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to encourage him to hold a public listening session at our headquarters on the New Starts reforms he announced last week. On January 13, 2010 the U.S. Department of Transportation announced, effective immediately, that it was rescinding a policy initiated in 2005 that limited New Starts recommendations to projects that have achieved a “medium” or higher rating for cost-effectiveness.  The Federal Transit Administration will, over the next several months, initiate a rulemaking process on the Obama Administration’s New Starts reform proposal.  For your review, please find attached our letter to Secretary LaHood.

The New Starts program is run by the Federal Transit Administration and is used to help fund large transit projects. Metro is currently seeking New Starts funding to help build both the Westside Subway Extension and the Downtown Regional Connector.

The letter is posted after the jump.
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Westside Subway Extension planning continues

A new report that updates the planning progress on the Westside Subway Extension is being presented to the Metro Board of Directors this month. Work on the draft environmental impact report is now 60% complete, according to the report.

Other news in the report:

*The subway planning team at Metro wants to advance some early engineering tasks for the subway extension this spring. That is being done to satisfy requirements of the federal New Starts Program and to potentially secure federal funds one year earlier than previously anticipated. If the engineering work can be started this year, it could potentially allow pre-construction activities for the subway — such as relocating utilities — to begin in 2012. The early engineering work will focus on the alignment that mostly follows Wilshire Boulevard, the route that will receive Measure R funds in the long-range plan approved by the Metro Board of Directors.

*Seismic studies will determine whether the subway can be built under Santa Monica Boulevard in the Century City area. The studies are being done to pinpoint the location of a branch of the Newport Inglewood Fault, which is near Santa Monica Blvd. One alternative also being considered is to put the subway under Constellation Boulevard, which would move the subway into the heart of Century City.
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Federal rules changes could benefit Metro, other transit projects

Some significant transit news out of Washington D.C. today: The rules that govern which major transit projects receive federal funding have been eased so that theoretically more projects can qualify.

Why does this matter to Los Angeles County?

Metro is currently seeking federal funds for the Westside Subway Extension and Downtown Regional Connector projects from the federal New Starts program. In the past, decisions on which projects received New Starts were largely made on the basis of whether a project met certain “cost-effectiveness” guidelines.

Here’s the first sentence from the press release from the Federal Transit Administration:

In a dramatic change from existing policy, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today proposed that new funding guidelines for major transit projects be based on livability issues such as economic development opportunities and environmental benefits, in addition to cost and time saved, which are currently the primary criteria.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this plays out. The subway and regional connector projects may have qualified for some federal funding even before the change. But there’s little doubt that the broader the requirements, the more arguments that can be made for funding.

Here’s a link to a previous post explaining the New Starts program and which transits projects it will fund in the next fiscal year. Hint: none of them are in Los Angeles County.

Metro, elected officials ask feds for subway and connector dollars

As I posted last month, the funding game for the Westside Subway Extension and the Downtown Regional Connector projects was shifting from Los Angeles County to Washington D.C.

Now it’s official. Earlier this month, Metro CEO Art Leahy submitted a formal request for $77.6 million to the federal government, with the money to be used for preliminary engineering for the two projects. In addition, two members of Congress — Rep. Diane Watson and Rep. Henry Waxman — wrote letters supporting Metro’s request.

Scroll down to see the letter from Leahy to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood or click here.  Click to see Watson’s letter and Waxman’s letter to LaHood. An identical letter also went from them to Peter Orszag, the Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Leahy is hoping the $77.6 million be included in President Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2011. In September, the Metro Board of Directors voted unanimously to ask the feds to help pay for the subway and connector projects. Both are receiving many millions of dollars from the Measure R sales tax approved by Los Angeles County voters last year. But both need the federal dollars to be fully built — and built in some kind of timely fashion.

The request for the $77.6 million is a crucial test for the projects.
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Metro officials prepare to seek federal money for subway and connector projects

We launched the Source quickly last month in time to report on the October meeting of the Board of Directors. But I wanted to circle back and try to better explain something that happened at the September meeting — when the Board voted to seek federal funds for both the Westside extension of the subway to Westwood and the downtown regional connector light rail.

The news of the day is that Metro officials are now hoping to secure that federal money by late summer 2011 and, on a more immediate note, are preparing to immediately seek millions of dollars in President Obama’s next budget to help pay for preliminary engineering of the projects. The best way I can summarize what this means: the political game involving the projects has now largely shifted from Los Angeles County to Washington D.C.

Both projects are getting money from the Measure R sales tax increase approved by voters last year. Getting that money was essentially the first half of the funding game. But that money — $4.1 billion for the subway and $160 million for the connector — doesn’t flow to the subway or connector all at once. That’s why Metro officials hope to secure federal money to add to the Measure R money, giving them enough to open the first phase of the subway to Fairfax and the connector in 2019. The federal money request is the second half of the funding game.

The Federal Transit Administration (the FTA) runs a program called “New Starts” to help transit agencies pay for big new rail and busway projects. New Starts provided for about $490 million of the $898 million cost of the Gold Line Eastside Extension line that is opening later this month. But once the Gold Line is complete, Metro doesn’t have any other projects in the New Starts funding pipeline.

Agency staff at last month’s meeting pointed out to the Board that the result is that Los Angeles County isn’t getting its fair share of federal dollars — that’s the message the above graphic tries to convey. Of course, it’s also fair to point out that to get New Starts money one must first ask and fill out several forests’ worth of paperwork. New Starts funding doesn’t just fall out of the sky and until recently Metro hasn’t asked for more New Starts money because: 1) until Measure R passed there weren’t many big projects in the works, and; 2) the Metro Board had not agreed what to ask for.

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