Making the case for Metro in Sacramento

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Metro Board Chairman Don Knabe and Metro CEO Art Leahy are in Sacramento today, lobbying state lawmakers to not drastically cut funding in the ongoing state budget negotiations.

Above, that’s Knabe meeting this morning with Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal, who chairs the Assembly’s transportation committee. Of course, Lowenthal is also a former member of the Metro Board.

What’s at stake in the current state budget negotiations? Here’s a recent post explaining how delays in the sale of Prop 1B bonds could stop construction of some Metro projects in their tracks. Literally.

Below is a short video dispatch that Supervisor Knabe sent from Sacramento.

Categories: Policy & Funding, Projects

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5 replies ›

  1. John:

    Don’t forget that the way it’s supposed to work, proven in cities throughout the world, is trains for longer distances, buses for shorter.

    The train infrastructure is crucial to get around, otherwise you have uncomfortably long bus rides just to get across town. People won’t (and don’t) do it unless they’re forced by economics.

    We’ve had buses only for far too long and it’s finally getting corrected. It needs to be done for the mere sanity of those living in this huge city.

  2. All state funding that the MTA gets should be contingent on it going to BUS SERVICE ONLY! Since the MTA has enough money to invest in non-moveable objects (train stations, maintenance yards, and transit centers!), the funding it goes “begging” for, ought to at least go to what MOVES THE RIDERS THAT KEEPS THE MTA IN BUSINESS-THAT BEING THE BUSES!

    • Hi John;

      Buses do carry the majority of Metro’s riders. That said, Metro Rail has about 300,000 boardings a day. If the trains stop running, how would all those people get around? I think we need both buses and trains — just as many other large cities do.

      Steve Hymon
      Editor, The Source

  3. Since Expo Line is so far along, it won’t be stopped. It would just delay the funding and construction timetable of other future projects (i.e. Expo Line Phase 2, Crenshaw Corridor, Foothill Gold Line, etc…)

  4. If these projects do get stopped in their tracks, which would really suck, especially since expo phase 1 is so close to being done, I am wondering how long they would be delayed (obviously not canceled because that would be insane) or also if there is a plan B like a public private partnership for these projects or something like that.