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Re: Dumbarton corridor study - And now for the complete BS....
Author: BOB2
Date: 08-10-2017 - 20:40
The placeholder for this project is on a measure list for RM2, but it is not a programmed project. And, worse this is not a very tight legally binding "promise" of $91 million to be set aside for Dumbarton, and includes several important caveats, 1) that project sponsors must find the additional funds necessary in a timely way, above those "promised" in RM2, 2) there is an explicit provision allowing MTC to move funds from poorly performing projects.
The ability or inability to identify additional funding for the then $600,000,000, now $1 billion project, and the provisions of the funding criteria, regarding match commitment are critical. The measure grants MTC almost complete discretion to set the criteria, and decide if they have been met. I've added a document that show this basis being used to "shift" what appears to be all of the remaining 34 million promised.
If there is a five year delay in finding any additional State of Federal funding, so the project could be formally "programmed" constitute poor performance? It doesn't matter since it is at the discretion of the MTC Board. It was a rather vague promise, without the degree of legal specificity to specific projects, negotiated by those "cutting up the hog" in the LA Measures.
This "promise" of a "future" corridor project, instead of an enforceable near term funding commitment, is a kind of "bait and switch" that almost happened to the UP/West Santa Ana branch project "corridor" in writing the LA measure extension. Initially it was a "future" corridor where the "commitment" wasn't really a commitment, which moved out to 2047, making it just a placeholder. That was stopped.
Of course John Fasana is a way better lawyer than that, and didn't let that even come close to happening to the Gold Line extension, when he "sold" his vote, to represent his constituents in the San Gabriel Valley, in his "horse trading" over the measure extension.
Process matters and political leaders who make those process decisions matter, something many advocates don't seem to get, in how all of this comes together,
What is even more amazing from the local new story you sent me Hutch, is how the locals even shot themselves in the foot in 2008, in public, at the critical decision point, sabotaging their own project And, they failed to get even one EFFING dollar in Federal Funds included the Stimulus, or any other transportation appropriation process, to match this, and show that they were able or even trying to meet the match "criteria", and move it forward.
For some light reading, not written by your local journalist:
RM2 fund agreements and project list status
Dumbarton Decision Point?
Requirements
This project was included in a project list, but not with a legally enforceable mechanism, and with no political support to force the project forward, or find the necessary match.
Yes, Altamont via Dumbarton makes much more sense, if you want to provide real traffic relief, improved access in corridors with significant unmet needs, and significant potential demand, and you are willing to make the investment in a new bridge, DT, and a new tunnel, to connect the Valley via Tracey, Modesto, and Merced, to Fresno.
Will Dumbarton really happen and get the kind of funding it would really require, to do right? Probably not while we continue to piss money away even more money on CHSRA going the "other way" down the Valley and on to "Wasco" .....? Chowchilla to Wasco for a mere $13 billion, ain't it great...?
The ability or inability to identify additional funding for the then $600,000,000, now $1 billion project, and the provisions of the funding criteria, regarding match commitment are critical. The measure grants MTC almost complete discretion to set the criteria, and decide if they have been met. I've added a document that show this basis being used to "shift" what appears to be all of the remaining 34 million promised.
If there is a five year delay in finding any additional State of Federal funding, so the project could be formally "programmed" constitute poor performance? It doesn't matter since it is at the discretion of the MTC Board. It was a rather vague promise, without the degree of legal specificity to specific projects, negotiated by those "cutting up the hog" in the LA Measures.
This "promise" of a "future" corridor project, instead of an enforceable near term funding commitment, is a kind of "bait and switch" that almost happened to the UP/West Santa Ana branch project "corridor" in writing the LA measure extension. Initially it was a "future" corridor where the "commitment" wasn't really a commitment, which moved out to 2047, making it just a placeholder. That was stopped.
Of course John Fasana is a way better lawyer than that, and didn't let that even come close to happening to the Gold Line extension, when he "sold" his vote, to represent his constituents in the San Gabriel Valley, in his "horse trading" over the measure extension.
Process matters and political leaders who make those process decisions matter, something many advocates don't seem to get, in how all of this comes together,
What is even more amazing from the local new story you sent me Hutch, is how the locals even shot themselves in the foot in 2008, in public, at the critical decision point, sabotaging their own project And, they failed to get even one EFFING dollar in Federal Funds included the Stimulus, or any other transportation appropriation process, to match this, and show that they were able or even trying to meet the match "criteria", and move it forward.
For some light reading, not written by your local journalist:
RM2 fund agreements and project list status
Dumbarton Decision Point?
Requirements
This project was included in a project list, but not with a legally enforceable mechanism, and with no political support to force the project forward, or find the necessary match.
Yes, Altamont via Dumbarton makes much more sense, if you want to provide real traffic relief, improved access in corridors with significant unmet needs, and significant potential demand, and you are willing to make the investment in a new bridge, DT, and a new tunnel, to connect the Valley via Tracey, Modesto, and Merced, to Fresno.
Will Dumbarton really happen and get the kind of funding it would really require, to do right? Probably not while we continue to piss money away even more money on CHSRA going the "other way" down the Valley and on to "Wasco" .....? Chowchilla to Wasco for a mere $13 billion, ain't it great...?
