Tardy Transit Funding Arrives in Los Angeles, Twin Cities

"The Los Angeles County subway project that will whisk commuters from the Westside to downtown in less than half an hour will receive $100 million in federal grants next year," reports Laura J. Nelson.

"The federal funds are earmarked for the final leg of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $9-billion project to extend the Purple Line from its terminus in Koreatown to a station near the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs campus, just west of the 405 Freeway," adds Nelson.

The funding was one of a collection of projects left in the lurch by the FTA for most of the year, as funding promised by Congress was never delivered.

The FTA's sudden generosity spread to a project in the Twin Cities this week as well. "The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) today announced it will be fully funding the federal share of $74.1 million for the METRO Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, a 17-mile transitway planned for the region’s busiest express bus corridor," according to a press release from the Metropolitan Council.

The sighs of relief about the funding have been trickling out slowly—in Albuquerque and Seattle recently, for instance, as well as the San Francisco Bay Area, Everett, Washington, and Kansas City earlier this year. Projects like the Central Avenue Bus Rapid Transit project planned by Hillsborough Area Regional Transit and the Southwest Light Rail Corridor in the Twin Cities are still waiting.