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Re: It's State Money.....
Author: BOB2
Date: 04-09-2017 - 10:30
That's a good question......Mike....normally many of these types of projects may be/could be "exempt" from certain EIS and/or EIR requirements
Yeah, technically these improvements could be "exempt" and done without an environmental, if they were federally funded, or used private capital within an existing ROW.
This is state funding, so they can apply state environmental requirements, as they wish.
It's not a bad process, though, before going out to contract with a project of this scope. And, if done right, can develop a good "plan" with community input and "general consensus" in a better set of alternatives, and hopefully with good analysis lead to a strong "consensus" final alternative, that can be quickly turned into designs and contracts, to implement.
Where we have wasted significant monies on needless environmental work is on things like the completion of the San Fernando Valley double tracking, taken hostage by Nimby's and political wannabee's, backed by an ambitious Councilman, where MTA was forced by this pressure to agree to do a full environmental, at great cost, with no real procedural purpose, except to give these Nimby's a political platform to rant and rave, delaying even a very small incremental improvement capacity/reliability/safety project by several more years.
Yeah, technically these improvements could be "exempt" and done without an environmental, if they were federally funded, or used private capital within an existing ROW.
This is state funding, so they can apply state environmental requirements, as they wish.
It's not a bad process, though, before going out to contract with a project of this scope. And, if done right, can develop a good "plan" with community input and "general consensus" in a better set of alternatives, and hopefully with good analysis lead to a strong "consensus" final alternative, that can be quickly turned into designs and contracts, to implement.
Where we have wasted significant monies on needless environmental work is on things like the completion of the San Fernando Valley double tracking, taken hostage by Nimby's and political wannabee's, backed by an ambitious Councilman, where MTA was forced by this pressure to agree to do a full environmental, at great cost, with no real procedural purpose, except to give these Nimby's a political platform to rant and rave, delaying even a very small incremental improvement capacity/reliability/safety project by several more years.
