The Metro Board of Directors’ debate on the agency’s long-range plan is underway. Board member and County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas kicked things off by offering an amendment that would:

1. Require Metro to study several possible funding sources that could be used to build the Crenshaw Corridor and Foothill Gold Line Extension lines quicker. These include federal climate change transit funds, special parking districts and benefit assessment districts.

2. Require Metro to begin operating the Foothill Gold Line Extension when the light rail line from Pasadena to Azusa is complete. The long-range plan calls for Metro to begin operating the line in 2017, but the Foothill Gold Line Extension Authority says the line could be built quicker than that.

3. “Metro shall not take or reallocate the portion of Measure R funding which was specifically approved by the voters for bus system improvements and operations.”

4. Re-evaluate funding for widening the 5 freeway from the 605 to 710 freeways.

5. Allocate $1 billion in unallocated funds from the long-range plan to a project that would built truck lanes and HOV lanes on the 5 freeway from the 14 freeway to the Kern County Line.

(Correction: The amendment was co-written by Board members Mike Antonovich and John Fasana)