Anytime the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) gets involved, El Monte and the rest of the San Gabriel Valley gets “dumped on.”
Well, that’s what El Monte Councilmembers Pat Wallach and Art Barrios think.
El Monte has been asked to participate in a conversation about the possibility of converting the 210 and 10 HOV lanes into toll roads. The idea did resonate well with some of the El Monte council members. At a special meeting on Monday, council members expressed their disgust for the plan — and for MTA.
Councilman Juventino Gomez said that he predicts that should toll roads be implemented, that it will only mean more traffic within El Monte’s major roadways.
“We’ve got to really think about this,” Gomez said. “This could be much more costly in a lot of ways. There will be increased truck traffic … and our police department will have to be busier.”
But most of the venom shot at MTA came from Wallach and Barrios.
“Whenever MTA gets involved, the SGV gets dumped on. We don’t have any benefits if this goes through,” Barrios said.
Wallach couldn’t agree more.
“We always get dumped on here in the San Gabriel Valley. MTA seems to not be thinking about the other valley,” Wallach said.
Incidentally, both Wallach and Barrios were chosen as the El Monte delegates to discuss this plan with the San Gabriel Valley Legislative Caucus on Saturday. (Not with the MTA, as I previosuly posted.)
The meeting begins at 9 a.m. and will be at the City of West Covina’s Council Chambers, 1444 West Garvey Ave.
Reporter Dan Abendschein will be covering the event, so look for a story about it in Sunday’s newspaper.
