Gold Line fight brewing up again

A few days back a couple of San Gabriel Valley politicians had something of a mock round table where they criticized the MTA for not funding the Gold Line. Steve Hymon, at the Bottleneck Blog, posted the video on his site. He pointed out, hilariously, that the interviewer at the round table, who lobbed soft-ball questions at congress members David Dreier, Adam Schiff, Grace Napolitano, and Hilda Solis. The interviewer who was not identified in the video, Hymon points out, was Dreier;s press secretary Jo Maney.

It didn't garner that much attention from the general public, but it was enough to get MTA chief Roger Snoble steamed up. He had his staff dispatch a letter that Snoble wrote to Dreier about the Gold Line to multiple media sources, myself included. Basically, it argues, that the Federal Transit Administration is not only not guaranteeing the $320 million in funding that San Gabriel Valley politicians claim it is, but that they are not at all likely to provide the funding. A selected part of the text:

It is likely to be many years at best before the Foothill project completes the lengthy and rigorous New Starts process, assuming the FTA allows the project to remain under consideration. Given the intense level of competition for limited federal resources among a large number of proposed projects nationwide, combined with uncertainty surrounding the future of the New Starts program, success is far from guaranteed and in fact may prove to be elusive. On the other hand, a successful outcome with the sales tax measure will mean the Foothill project will soon become a reality.

Notice that the MTA is not-so-subtly pushing the sales tax measure as an alternative to any up-front commitment to the Gold Line, which is exactly what San Gabriel Valley politicians have been demanding as the price for their support of the sales tax.

In the letter (which is hard to reproduce in full because it is a pdf file) Snoble also says the project has received a "medium-low" financial rating from the FTA, and that it will require a "medium" rating to move forward.

I hope to find out a little more precisely what exactly that means.... stay tuned. It might be time to get some answers from the FTA about this project.