SACRAMENTO — A $107.1 million award to Bay Area Rapid Transit, and another of $107.05 million to LA Metro and Metrolink, head the list of eight rail projects receiving grants Tuesday from the California State Transportation Agency, as part of 17 transit projects receiving a total of $500 million in state funding.
The funds to BART will allow the purchase of 34 railcars to expand the agency’s fleet, allowing service through the Transbay Tube to be increased from 23 to 30 trains per hour, and allowing use of 10-car trains systemwide during peak periods.
The funds for Metro and Metrolink are to increase service on Metrolink’s Antelope Valley line to hourly service, with service every 30 minutes between Los Angeles Union Station and Santa Clarita; they will help pay for infrastructure projects to increase capacity, additional service, and assessing the feasibility of rail multiple unit and zero-emission propulsion for Metrolink’s Antelope Valley Line.
The other rail-related projects:
— $95.2 million to the City of Inglewood for the Inglewood Transit Connector, a 1.6-mile electrically powered automated people mover connecting from the L.A. Metro Crenshaw/LAX line to new housing and sports facilities in the city.
— $41.7 million to San Francisco Muni for a series of projects including improvements on the J and M light rail corridors, increasing near-term capacity and enabling future growth.
— $38.7 million to LOSSAN, the authority operating Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner, for new serving facilities in San Luis Obispo and San Diego County, as well as overhaul and modernization of Surfliner railcars.
— $23.6 million to the Sacramento Regional Transit District for eight new low-floor light rail vehicles to enable low-floor operations on the Gold Line.
— $12.1 million to the San Diego Association of Governments, the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, and North County Transit District for an additional mile of San Diego Trolley line, allowing the Green and Orange lines to terminate at the El Cajon Transit Center, with a trolley shuttle to Santee. Also included is funding for the ongoing Del Mar Bluffs stabilization project.
— $3.9 million to the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority for new access to the Sacramento Valley station to a 10,000-unit housing project, including integration of light rail and bus service.
The full list of projects, including those involving bus and ferry transit, is available here.
I’d love to know how the rest of the $1Billion Inglewood Transit Connector project is going to be funded, since the principal beneficiaries seem to be Steve Ballmer (owner of the Clippers, planning a new arena at the southern terminus of the people mover, and recent purchaser of the Forum), Stan Kroenke (owner of the Rams, developer of the massive Hollywood Park/SoFi Stadium project, husband of Ann Walton), and Dean Spanos (owner of the Chargers, tenant of Kroenke).
Not that I’m bitter about corporate welfare or anything.