LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority snared a major victory Tuesday for its effort to build a subway to connect Los Angeles' affluent Westside to its growing rail network.
Federal, state and local elected officials joined LA Metro in announcing the receipt of a $1.25 billion full funding grant agreement from the Federal Transit Administration.
The funding will help pay for the first four-mile, $2.82 billion segment of the nine-mile Purple Line extension project.
Preliminary construction activities for the first segment of the Purple Line are expected to begin later this year. Completion of the first phase is anticipated in 2023. When all three phases of the project are completed the Purple Line will extend nine miles from West Hollywood to a University of California, Los Angeles station in Westwood.
The U.S. Department of Transportation simultaneously granted Metro a low-interest, $856 million Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan to complete the funding package for the first phase.
"The Metro Purple Line Extension project is a great accomplishment for Los Angeles," U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer said in a prepared statement. "The TIFIA Program from MAP-21 provided key financing that enables the project to move forward."
The federal commitment "underscores the confidence of Washington in what we are doing in Los Angeles on many fronts to deal with the nation's worst traffic congestion," said Metro Board Chair Diane DuBois.
By the end of the year, Metro will have a record five rail lines concurrently under construction in Los Angeles County, funded in part with about $3.5 billion in federal grants and low-interest loans, Dubois said.
"That is an unprecedented federal commitment to expanding transportation infrastructure in the county, and we are overjoyed and grateful," Dubois said.
The project will connect the Westside to the region's growing rail network making it possible to get downtown in just 25 minutes, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein said.
"Today's signing of the full funding grant agreement for the Purple Line Extension marks a great day for Los Angeles," Feinstein said.
Boxer said she was proud to chair the House-Senate conference committee in 2012 that produced the transportation bill MAP-21. One of the greatest achievements in MAP-21 was the expansion of the TIFIA program, Boxer said.
"This was modeled after Los Angeles' 30/10 initiative and began when Los Angeles came to me with the idea for the federal government to provide low interest loans so that cities and states could leverage local resources to accelerate the construction of transportation projects," Boxer said. "The success of what you are doing in Los Angeles was crucial to my ability to expand the TIFIA program so that regions across the country can replicate this successful model."
The expanded TIFIA program also resulted in a $160 million loan to help fund Metro's regional connector project. The U.S. Department of Transportation and the Port of Long Beach will be closing on a TIFIA loan to fund the rebuilding of the Gerald Desmond Bridge this week, she said.
"In Congress, our focus now is on finding a way to ensure the long-term solvency of the Highway Trust Fund - millions of jobs and our economic recovery depend on it," Boxer said. "Without action, the Highway Trust Fund will run out of money later this summer."
Last week, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously passed a six-year reauthorization of MAP-21.
"Our bill illustrates how investing in infrastructure can and should be a bipartisan issue," Boxer said.
