Did bad marketing and its odd name stop a Metro rail line from getting funds?

Despite being LA Metro’s top project for federal funding, plus its inclusion in a top three list of rail projects in the agency’s application for state funding, the oddly named West Santa Ana Branch Transit Corridor project got zero dollars in the last funding cycle.

The proposed line, dubbed the West Santa Ana Branch Corridor project, gets its confusing name from an old right-of-way, still available and once used for the now-defunct Pacific Electric Santa Ana route in L.A. County.

The envisioned combination light rail and subway line would connect downtown L.A. with the suburbs of Artesia, Cerritos, Bellflower, Paramount, Downey, South Gate, Cudahy, Bell, Huntington Park, Vernon and unincorporated Florence-Graham, running roughly between the 110 and 5 freeways.

At a cost of $9.1 billion to construct, the line would serve majority-minority, lower-income communities in which 44% of the residents along the route live below the poverty line and 18% of households do not have access to a car, Metro reported.

Supporters noted the project checks the equity box, a top criteria among Democrats in both Sacramento and the White House, and is expected to be heavily used. But those factors have not landed the project any state of federal funding, only funds from LA Metro’s four measures that collect revenues from sales taxes.

Frustration over the lack of state funding reached the boiling point at an LA Metro subcommittee hearing last week, as critics pointed fingers at LA Metro’s staff for doing a poor job at strategizing, lobbying and marketing.

In an application for the state Transit and Intercity Rail City Capital Program that had $3.7 billion for statewide use culled from a state budget surplus of $98 billion — only one of the three projects submitted by Metro was funded: The East San Fernando Valley Light Rail project, awarded $600 million.

The West Santa Ana Branch, with an ask of $500 million, and the completion of the Foothill Gold Line (now “L” Line) from Pomona into San Bernardino County, which had asked for $798 million, both received zero dollars.

Fourth District Los Angeles County Supervisor and LA Metro Board member Janice Hahn spoke at a Metro executive management committee meeting on Feb. 16, criticizing Metro’s staff for the poor showing, which  could stall progress on southeast L.A. County’s first rail line.

Earlier, at a full board of directors meeting, Hahn pushed for $1 billion but was told that seeking too much for a single line could jeopardize all state funding. So Hahn reluctantly withdrew her motion.

“You made me feel terrible and embarrassed,” she said to the Metro staff. “But it was never about asking for too much. It was about ‘they weren’t shovel ready.’

“I feel like your intel is way off,” Hahn continued. “Staff, get your intel better before you ask us to support the project,” she said, adding she even had a letter in support from Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, which did not convince the California State Transportation Agency to fund the two LA Metro projects.

She will bring up the project again at the March Metro board meeting, when alternate funding will be on the agenda. But the issue of properly marketing the unfunded projects to decision-makers in Sacramento and Washington D.C. came up at the committee meeting.

What’s in a name? Plenty, according to some Metro board members, who see the West Santa Ana Branch line as wrongly pointing to the city of Santa Ana in Orange County.

“Santa Ana? Why are we talking about Orange County?” asked Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, the newest LA Metro board member, at the committee meeting. She said she was confused by the name chosen by LA Metro staff.

“The West Santa Ana Branch (light-rail line) is going to serve a community that is disadvantaged (in southeast L.A. County),” said Fifth District Supervisor and LA Metro Board member Kathryn Barger. “I challenge you to come up with a catchy name to reflect who this line will be serving,” she said, pointing to the staff.

“Because clearly, when I hear ‘West Santa Ana’ I think of Orange County. I think a rebranding is needed to reflect what that project is,” Barger said.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts, a Metro board member, opted not to put a people-mover project into the LA Metro’s application. He decided to go it alone and work with independent consultants to meet the state funding criteria, he said.

The result? The Inglewood Transit Connector that would connect the Metro K Line with Inglewood’s new SoFi football stadium, home to the L.A. Rams and L.A. Chargers, as well as to the Kia Forum and the Intuit Dome (LA Clippers professional basketball team’s future home), got $407.4 million from the state.

It was the second time the same Inglewood project had received a state grant, the first occurring in 2020. It is also promised $784 million in Federal Transit Administration funding.

“That was a helluva job you did,” congratulated Glendale Mayor and LA Metro Board Chair Ara Najarian. “It was a master’s class in transit advocacy by Mayor Butts. Many were left with our jaws open when the report came out. But you did it.”

Butts said he worked with a team of consultants to check off each criteria listed by the California State Transportation Agency to meet grant requirements. “It’s so we were competitive,” he said.

Bass asked that each member of the Southern California congressional delegation put the project on their radar. She also suggested board members corral U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on his next visit to California.

“Next time the secretary is here, it would be nice if he would visit some of the projects,” Bass said.

Meanwhile, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach, wrote a letter to Buttigieg on Feb. 13, asking for $50 million to jump start the West Santa Ana Branch project. He asked for the money from the 2024 fiscal year report on funding recommendations for the Capital Investment Grants (CIG) program.

“The West Santa Ana Branch is the single most important transportation infrastructure project to my community,” Garcia wrote. He said the project meets climate goals laid out in President Biden’s Justice 40 Initiative that would dramatically improve access to transportation in some of the nation’s most historically underserved communities.

Source: Orange County Register