Transit funds are available
CITY HALL Santa Monica is in the running for $7.2 million in grants from the MTA and CalTrans that will help pay for school-based bicycle training, alternative fuel buses and other transportation-related projects on the Westside.
City officials recently participated in an appeals meeting to provide additional information on five city projects and two others submitted by the Westside Cities Council of Governments,or COG,of which Santa Monica is a member, city and county officials said.
The Metro board is expected to make a final decision on the projects in July.
It is the first time in six years that the MTA has initiated a “Call for Projects,” allowing all 88 cities in the county and transit operators to compete openly for funding.
Metro received 406 applications totaling $1.7 billion. Staff is recommending funding just 174 projects for a total of $450 million, according to Carol Inge, chief planning officer for Metro.
Of the seven projects submitted by Santa Monica, five have been recommended for funding, a good percentage considering the competition, said Don Patterson, assistant to the City Manager.
“We did fairly well,” Patterson said. “It’s quite unique... We really tried to focus on projects we felt were competitive and that really had a regional significance.”
The projects being recommended for funding are: a bike transit station in one of the city’s downtown parking structures, where there would be both attended and self-parking for bicyclists; bicycle training for students, to teach them how to safely ride on city streets; the replacement of 20 dirty diesel buses with those running on liquefied natural gas (complete replacement of Big Blue Buses diesel fleet with alternative fuel buses is anticipated by 2014); the installation of real time beach parking signs that will let motorists know when beach lots are full; and traffic signal upgrades for Main Street, Ocean Park Boulevard and Neilson Way.
A Metro committee rejected proposals to replace BBB fare boxes and encourage Santa Monica College students to carpool, ride bikes or use public transit.
If the City Council does receive the funding, it has yet to prioritize which projects would be put into action first, Patterson said.
“All the projects are important to different communities and interest groups,” Patterson said. “There is a balanced range of projects.”
Matching funds would be required for the projects to go forward. Some require City Hall to contribute as much as $1 million, while others are decidedly cheaper, requiring only a $45,000 match.
All told, the city would have to contribute more than $3 million towards the five projects.
As for the COG projects, Metro is considering plans to improve intersections with bus stops, making them more pedestrian friendly; and the installation of new bicycle technologies, such as censors and cameras at intersections that can trigger a traffic light to change, bike parking in commercial areas and bike boxes to show riders where to position themselves at intersections.The process is critical for Santa Monica, which relies heavily on grants to fund capital improvement projects. In the past, Metro funds have helped build the Santa Monica Urban Runoff Recycling Facility (SMURRF), bus stop improvements and crosswalk enhancements. Funds are currently being used for the Exposition bike path and Second and Fourth Street improvements.
Patterson said potential sources of funding outside of the city’s general fund have been identified.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 30, 2007. Read the original PDF.