The vacillation by San Bernardino County transit officials with regard to funding the eastern leg of the light rail system linking downtown Los Angeles and Redlands has resulted in Sacramento electing to withhold scores of millions of dollars in state grants that would have paid for a substantial percentage of the cost of completing of two tracks linking Pomona at the easternmost end of Los Angeles County with Montclair at the westernmost end of San Benradino County.
Running from Union Station in Los Angles up to the San Gabrel Foothill communities and then eastward beyond Azusa nearly to Glendora is the L-Line tracks. The L-Line is also known as the Gold Line.
The Los Angeles County-based Gold Line Construction Authority right now is engaged with a nine-mile, $806 million extension of the light rail line from Azusa to northern Pomona, such that at present work on the leg between Azusa and Glendora is ongoing.The track will reach Pomona by late 2025. Thereafter, the line was previously slated to be extended another 3.3 miles from Pomona through Claremont to Montclair at that city’s existing Montclair Transit Center. From there, the intention had been to extend it from Montclair to Ontario Airport. According to the Gold Line Construction Authority, the extension of the line from north Pomona to Claremont will entail a cost of $450 million.
Previously, the Gold Line Construction Authority in conjunction with the San Bernardino County Transportation Agency, when it was previously known as San Bernardino Associated Governments (SANBAG), intended to continue the line from Claremont to Montclair, and then from Montclair to Ontario Airport. SANBAG had accordingly dedicated $39 million in available transportation money toward the Gold Line project, and did a joint application with the Los Angeles Metro Transit Agency for a State of California Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program grant. That application was successful and it brought in $250 million on the Los Angeles County side, which made a significant but not complete inroad on the $850 funding deficit that jurisdiction had, and provided another $41 million of the then-projected $80 million cost for the San Bernardino County portion of the projected expense on the eastern side of the Los Angeles County/San Bernardino County border to get the line to Montclair.
Subsequently, however, when the project went out to bid, it turned out the cost of building the line from Claremont to Montclair would not contain itself to an earlier $73 million projection or the later $80 million estimate, but had escalated to $96 million.
In reaction to that projected cost overrun, San Bernardino County Transportation Authority Executive Director Ray Wolfe convinced a majority of the San Bernardino County Transportation Agency board in the fall of 2019 to pull the plug on San Bernardino County’s portion of the Gold Line funding. On October 10, 2019 the San Bernardino County Transportation Agency’s transit subcommittee, composed of representatives from the cities of Big Bear Lake, Chino Hills, Colton, Fontana, Highland, Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Rialto, Yucaipa and the county’s Third Supervisorial District, by a vote of 8-to-3 endorsed Wolfe’s proposal to dispense with constructing the new Gold Line track into San Bernardino County altogether and to instead have Gold Line passengers heading eastward from Los Angeles or the San Gabriel Valley load onto another train at the Claremont Station which will run on the existing Metrolink track.
San Bernardino County transportation officials declared their intention to return the $41 million State of California Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program grant that had been freed up to allow the county to overcome the gap between the $39 million in available revenue from the half-cent sales tax collected throughout San Bernardino County for transportation improvements for completing the Gold Line extension from Claremont to Montclair and the earlier projected cost of the 1.2-mile extension.
At least some of the voting members of the The San Bernardino County Transportation Agency have begun to rethink that position.
As early as February 2020, Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-41st District) and State Senator Anthony Portantino (D-25th District) discussed and subsequently introduced legislation to create the West San Bernardino County Rail Construction Authority, an entity to be dedicated to designing and building the six-mile span of track linking Montclair to Ontario.
In response, SBCTA’s transit committee recommended that the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority commit $3 million to undertake a formal and comprehensive study of transit alternatives to and from Ontario International Airport. Nevertheless, no real concerted commitment toward the Gold Line light rail project has manifested in San Bernardino County.
One factor is the less than impressive performance of the commuter rail system that has existed in San Bernardino County – Metrolink – since 1992.
The track for the diesel-powered Metrolink, is shared with cargo trains, and it does not have frequent departures or arrivals, with the shortest time between departures from San Bernardino into Los Angeles running 20 minutes at certain times of the day and as much as two hours at other times. Consequently, Metrolink is not heavily used and it does little or nothing to alleviate heavy traffic on the freeways into and out of Los Angeles on a daily basis.
The Gold Line, which runs on a separate track dedicated to passenger transport alone from Downtown Los Angeles to Azusa, uses lighter cars and more fuel-efficient engines, with staggered departures and arrivals of as little as every eight minutes. The Gold Line is thus heavily used, and its cars, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, neared capacity on virtually every run. With the ending of social contact restrictions, the L-Line is nearing pre-pandemic ridership levels.
While positive sentiment toward the Gold Line among public officials on the east side of the San Bernardino County/Los Angeles County divide is nowhere near as strong as it is Los Angeles County, Gold Lne proponents have sought to convince legislators in Sacramento that augmenting the program with state funding is worthwhile. Unfortunately, for some time now, the majority of the California State Senate and the California Assembly have proven reluctant of put up state money or to pass through federal money given to the state for transportation-related programs if San Bernardino County officials are not themselves willing to sponsor improvements to their own commuting systems and infrastructure.
In September 2021 the state legislature’s budget committees ended discussions with Governor Gavin Newsom’s representatives without any commitment toward providing funds for the extension of the Gold Line into San Bernardino County over the remainder of the 2021-22 fiscal year, which ran from July 1, 2021 until June 30, 2022.
On January 31, 2023, based on the availability of funds from the 2021-22 budget surplus, the California State Transportation Agency awarded more than $2.5 billion to 16 transit projects throughout the state. Conspicuously missing from the list to be benefited by that windfall was the L-Line.
Estimates on what the cost at this time would be to extend the Gold Line to Montclair, including running it from Glendora to Pomona and then from Pomona to Montclar vary, but the most reliable figure at this point is at Least $660 million. Others have said the realistic cost in 2023 dollars is $758 million. In Los Angeles County there is the will and money already earmarked to get the line to Pomona.
Virtually all Los Angeles County officials and as many as a third of San Bernardno County transportation officials were hoping that the California State Transportation Agency would see its way clear to peel off at least $50 million and as much as $100 million in leftover 2021-22 funding to cover a portion of the L Line extension another 3.2 miles from Pomona to Montclair.
Some of those hopeful officials and many more San Bernardino County commuters expressed a combination of surprise, dismay and disappointment at what was characterized as Sacramento’s stinginess. Others, however, who were either less ignorant of the San Bernardino County Transportation Agency’s historic stance with regard to and inconsistent support of the Gold Line or those who otherwise had longer memories with regard to that history were not baffled at all as to why the funds were not forthcoming last year, were not provided this year and very likely won’t come from the state next year.
The inconsistent support for the Gold Line among those politicians who directly represent the intended users of that system has convinced both legislators and bureaucrats in the state’s transportation divisions that such investments represent a poor bet, since local transportation officials cannot be counted upon to follow through with the other necessary funding for all stages of the light rail initiative.
In San Bernardino County, what was formerly known as the San Bernardino Association of Governments or its acronym SANBAG served as the county’s joint powers authority devoted to interests in common relating to the county government itself and the county’s 22 cities and two incorporated towns, the most notable of which was transportation issues. In 2017, SANBAG changed its branding to the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority or SBCTA. SANBAG originally and SBCTA at present functions as the steward of Measure I funds. Measure I was a San Bernardino County funding initiative that imposed a half-cent sales tax collected throughout San Bernardino County for transportation improvements. Measure I was first approved by San Bernardino County voters in 1989 and was extended by a second vote in 2004 to remain in place through 2040. The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority has a governing board consisting of a council member or mayor from each of the county’s 24 incorporated cities as well as all five of the members of the county board of supervisors.
While from 2016 until 2019, SANBAG/SBCTA had collectively been in favor of the extension of the Gold Line to Montclair and eventually to Ontario Airport and ultimately to Redlands and potentially beyond that to Yuciapa, the escalation in the projected $73 million cost of extending the Gold Line from Pomona to Montclair to $80 million, followed by a jump to $96 million, soured San Bernardino County Transportation Authority Executive Director Ray Wolfe on the project.
Toward the close of the September 4, 2019 meeting of the authority’s board, Wolfe said, “I’m going to come back to you through committee next month and hopefully to the board in November with a recommendation that we throw in the towel” on the Gold Line undertaking.
Wolfe made good on that at the October meeting of the authority’s October 2019 transit committee meeting. The transit committee is composed of representatives from the cities of Big Bear Lake, Chino Hills, Colton, Fontana, Highland, Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Rialto, Yucaipa and the Third Supervisorial District.
Wolfe’s proposal called for dispensing with constructing the new Gold Line Track into San Bernardino County altogether and to instead have Gold Line passengers heading eastward from Los Angeles or the San Gabriel Valley load onto another train at the Claremont Station which will run on the existing MetroLink track. That system will use so-called diesel multiple unit trains in a what he said was a “hybrid” plan which he dubbed the “Gold Link.”
At the October 10, 2019 transit committee meeting, Wolfe laid out his game plan to put the kibosh on the Gold Line coming into Montclair. Ultimately, eight of the transit committee’s 12 members – Third District Supervisor Dawn Rowe and Rancho Cucamonga Mayor Lloyd Dennis Michael, then-Big Bear Councilman Bill Jahn, then-Yucaipa Councilman David Avila, Highland Councilman Larry McCallon, Fontana Mayor Acquanetta Warren, Colton Mayor Frank Navarro, and Rialto Mayor Deborah Robertson – voted to back Wolfe. Only Montclair Mayor John Dutrey, Ontario City Councilman Alan Wapner and Chino Hills Mayor Ray Marquez opposed his plan to scrub the county’s support of the Gold Line.
That vote set the tone for the State Legislature’s readiness to fund the Gold Line extension into San Bernardino County.