Re: Trump's transportation secretary? The Congress passes authorizations and expenditures.
Author: Butt$
Date: 11-15-2024 - 22:56

BOB2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Real turkeys, like the SOFI people mover
> (California's transit version of Alaska's "bridge
> to nowhere" project), that didn't make the funding
> cut in the House of Representative last session
> are in real trouble.

On July 22, 2024, the city of Inglewood announced that the project would be built and operated by Elevate Inglewood Partners.

The partnership includes Tutor Perini Corporation as lead contractor, Parsons Transportation Group as lead design company, a joint venture of Alternate Concepts, Inc. and Plenary Americas as lead operations and maintenance provider, and Woojin Industrial Systems as rolling stock technology provider.

Representative Maxine Waters, who had supported the project early on, came out against the project on July 18, 2024, writing a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg calling the project ridiculous and too costly as it would only serve the needs of visitors to the sports and entertainment venues and would not provide convenient connectivity for local residents.

After the letter went out, the House stripped $200 million in funding for the project from a draft budget bill.

The South Bay Cities Council of Government denied the project an additional $493 million in October 2024 which was needed to build the line and jeopardized $1 billion of federal matching funds. At about the same time,

Rams owner Stan Kroenke and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer came out against the project over concerns that it would cut into their property line and could lead to the loss of a traffic lane outside of their stadiums.

After the funding denial and amid opposition by Waters, Kroenke and Ballmer, Inglewood mayor James Butts conceded that the project was likely dead. He told the Los Angeles Times, "I don’t give up on anything, but I am realistic. It was voted down. So, for all intents and purposes, that’s it."

M. Waters of sound mind !?

Guess what just froze over!


Yep, and maybe some Lewis Carroll is appropriate, too?

“And, hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

Well, there was 2 billion that could have both accelerated and done the full LAUPT run through design or accelerated the construction of the SE Gateway UP/West Santa Ana LRT project by years. From funding that we are unlikely to see restored soon.

A big "heckuva a job" shout out to Stephanie Wiggins and Metro for their "visionary" leadership, and this kind of "adult" priority setting at Metro....

I guess that Tutor Perrini will be very disappointed.

And I had someone asked me again last week, at a meeting I was at on local traffic issues, why I don't think the LA Metro, (and LA, in general) is not really ready for the 2028 Olympics...

I just asked the group I was with, who is our Peter Ueberroth running the 2028 Games? And they all, almost in unison, picked up their phones to google 2028 Olympics...

While these folks were busy googling away trying to find an answer, I just told them that Mitt Romney was available after the first of the year.