[Sustain] Alert: Central Subway

[Eric Brooks]

Hi all,

Please see the quoted email below from transit activist Howard Strassner 
for more details. In addition to the MTA agenda item he highlights, the 
Board of Supervisors has also snuck authorizing this item as a 
resolution onto their 'Adoption Without Committee Reference' calendar 
for this Tuesday May 1st. (Board agenda item 49).

This item sets San Francisco up for exactly the scenario that many have 
warned about; that Federal or other Central Subway funding will be cut 
and the MTA will then take up the slack from its own revenues, thereby 
inevitably raising fares and fees and/or cutting basic transit services 
to pay for this ridiculous billion dollar a mile boondoggle.

NOTE: Sean Elsbernd has not yet co-sponsored this legislation, so it may 
be possible for us to ask that he send it to committee for a full 
hearing. Any of you with a friendly connection to Elsbernd please 
contact him and asked him to do so.

Here is the Board item text:

49. [Supporting Assurance Funding for the Central Subway Project]

Sponsors: Wiener; Chiu, Avalos, Mar, Campos, Olague, Cohen, Kim, Chu and 
Farrell

Resolution supporting SFMTA's commitment to issue revenue bonds as 
assurance funding for the Central Subway Project in the event of any 
delay or other shortfall in the availability of funding.

04/25/2012; REFERRED FOR ADOPTION WITHOUT COMMITTEE REFERENCE AGENDA AT 
THE NEXT BOARD MEETING.

Question: Shall this Resolution be ADOPTED?

Eric B

On 4/28/2012 10:31 AM, Howard Strassner wrote:
> **
>
> MTA BOARD AGENDA, MAY 1, 2012:See link for Item 10.4 for details.
>
> http://www.sfmta.com/cms/cmta/SFMTABoardMay12012agenda.htm
> <http://www.sfmta.com/cms/cmta/SFMTABoardMay12012agenda.htm>
>
> SaveMuni.com has asked that Item 10.4 be removed from the Consent Calendar .
>
> **
>
> The MTA is quietly authorizing and incurring debt for $61 million in
> revenue bonds for the Central Subway.But the premises of Prop A 2007,
> which granted revenue bond authority to the MTA, have not been
> met. Despite increased funding from increased parking taxes/ fees/ fines/
> enforcement, MTA has shifted those funds to work orders and bad projects
> like the Central Subway. Mandated citywide improvements from the Transit
> Effectiveness Program (TEP) have not been implemented---only service
> cuts, discontinued routes, shortened and curtailed lines.Revenue bonds
> are much more needed to address Muni’s $25.4 billion in existing capital
> needs.
>
> PROP A CHARTER AMENDMENT, November 2007:See Page 39 and 115.
>
> http://sfpl.org/pdf/main/gic/elections/November6_2007.pdf
> <http://sfpl.org/pdf/main/gic/elections/November6_2007.pdf>
>
> The MTA calls the issuance of revenue bonds as assurance funding---in
> the event that State High Speed Rail Bond Funds are delayed.But Governor
> Jerry Brown has not supported the Central Subway Project for Proposition
> 1A High-Speed Rail funds---because /“the project appears unrelated to
> the high-speed rail project or a comprehensive statewide rail plan”./In
> fact, the Central Subway disconnects Muni from High-Speed Rail