Metro's $80 Million Boondoggle
How much taxpayer loot should it take to buy a legacy for Yvonne Burke, the county supervisor and member of the governing board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority?
A few years ago, we had hoped to get off cheap with a $5 T-shirt bearing the message “I saved King/Drew.” Things didn’t quite work out.
Now, the long-tenured member of the state Assembly, Congress, and four-term county supervisor is preparing to leave the public spotlight and head off into retirement at the end of the year. But she is not content to leave without steamrolling a very expensive idea through the Metro board.
This morning (Thursday, February 28), the Metro board is scheduled to give final approval to an $80 million, 10-year contract to install turnstiles along the Red Line subway and at select light-rail stations. The numbers don’t add up and the project should be abandoned.
We think this boondoggle will likely cost far more to set up than Metro estimates and save less in unpaid fares than the transit agency, in its overly optimistic way of viewing the world – when it serves their interests – says it will.
So far, only one of 13 board members – Richard Katz – has risen up to oppose the plan. Last month, when the Metro board was all set to sign off on the plan, Katz came forward with a last-minute letter raising questions about Metro’s assumptions. In the letter, Richard Stanger, the mastermind behind the region’s Metrolink commuter train network, poked holes in all of Metro’s budget numbers and discounted claims that turnstiles would improve security one ounce.
Unless the Metro board can satisfactorily address every one of Stanger’s points, and nail down budget figures as immutable truths, it has no business approving the deal. Let reasonable people stop the board from ripping off the public to set up a turnstile system no one needs. It’s time to tell Cubic Transportation Systems, Inc. of San Diego to take a hike.
In coming months, the Metro board likely will be out campaigning for a ballot measure from Covina to Santa Clarita, from the South Bay and Santa Monica to Pasadena, asking voters to help pay for an array of transportation projects, from subways to light rail, even some carpool lanes on freeways.
If board members approve the turnstile system, they can expect to be dogged at every campaign stop about why voters should consider giving them more money if they can’t prudently spend what they already have. a
Published: 02/27/2008
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