In an action of significant implication, the San Bernardino County Transportation Agency’s board of directors, by a 15-to-11 ratio of those participating, on Wednesday, September 3, opted out of extending the Gold Line light rail transportation system into San Bernardino County.
The decision was one of historic proportion, as the dedicated commuter line, which links up nearly all of Los Angeles County from west to east, has established itself as among the premier light rail systems in the country alongside those in Portland, Boston and San Francisco. The efficiency of the Gold Line, which is also referred to as the A Line, with its dual tracks and frequent arrivals and departures, has substantial enough ridership levels that it has mitigated freeway clogging by reducing volume on them by thousands of cars per day on the west side of the San Bernardino County/Los Angeles County Line.
After construction of the Gold Line was initiated in 1994, its first phase was completed in 2003. Currently, service runs from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to Azusa. An extension of the dual tracks has now been laid entirely Azusa to Pomona, which will become operative upon the completion of testing and inspection.
While conceptually, there had always been the vision of having the Gold Line eventually run from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, more than a decade ago, serious discussion with regard to arranging the extension of the Gold Line from its eventual easternmost station in Los Angeles County in Claremont eastward in gradual extensions, first to the Montclair Transit Center in Montclair and then to Ontario International Airport in Ontario. Between 2015 and 2019, the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority’s predecessor, San Bernardino Association of Governments, known by its acronym SanBAG, had committed to completing the first phase of the intercounty transportation system, obtaining a $41 million State of California Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program grant to go toward the completion of the first phase of that extension to Montclair.
In 2019, by which time SanBAG had been transformed into the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority and was going by the acronym SBCTA, San Bernardino County Transportation Authority Chief Executive Officer Raymond Wolfe had become convinced that rail lines did not represent a viable solution to the region’s transportation dilemma. Wolfe believed that a combination of factors, including land acquisition costs for the rail line and the very poor train ridership figures demonstrated by the existing MetroLink commuter rail system in San Bernardino County, augered against San Bernardino County investing in the Gold Line. At the October 10, 2019 meeting of SBCTA’s 12-member transit committee, Wolfe made his case for abandoning the project to complete first leg of the Gold Line’s progression out of Los Angeles County to Ontario Airport, consisting of constructing the dual tracks one-and-a-quarter miles from Claremont to the Montclair Transit Station. Eight of the transit committee’s members – Third District San Bernardino County 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.
By the committee’s vote, San Bernardino County relinquished the $41 million State of California Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program grant.
In the aftermath of that vote, the Metro Rail Construction Authority and its contractor, Kiewit-Parsons completed the 1.9 mile extension of the Gold Line from Azusa to Glendora and embarked on the $1.5 billion effort to extend the dual-track light rail line to three stations lying further east on the Metro A Line, those being San Dimas, La Verne and Pomona.
In the time since, ridership on the single-track heavy rail transportation system, MetroLink, remained poor and declined, exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. After the end of the coronavirus crisis, the number of MetroLink passengers did not return to their already-weak numbers. Simultaneously, as the residents of the San Gabriel Mountains Foothill Communities learned of the Gold Line, its use magnified.
With its dual-tracks, the Gold Line had the advantage of allowing eastbound and westbound trains to run simultaneously. In this way, during the rush hour/heavy commuting hours of 6 a.m. until 9 a.m. when demand for westward travel was at its heaviest and from 4:30 p.m. until 7: p.m. when the number of passengers going east reached their peak, departures from the stations took place a quickly as every seven to nine minutes. This resulted in roughly 15,000 fewer car trips on those portions of the 210, 10 and 60 freeways in Los Angeles County.
This contrasted with the MetroLink system in San Bernardino County. MetroLink, which runs on a single line that also accommodates traditional freight-moving trains and connects Union Station and its station at the University of Redlands, utilizes trains that depart, at most, once every 61 minutes.
That chapter with regard to the future of light-rail commuting San Bernardino County persisted for nearly four years, with the plans to take the Gold Line beyond Claremont dead, or at least dormant. Still much lobbying was taking place quietly in the back corridors and rooms of power and governance, the upshot of which was that San Bernardino County transportation officials should ponderously reexamine what they had done.
While the Metro Rail Construction Authority remained committed to finishing the line all the way to Pomona and was intent on lining up the funding to plan toward extending the line from Pomona to Claremont, urban planners, state legislators whose districts straddled both Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties and state transportation officials took note of the San Bernardino County Transportation Agency’s action canceling the Gold Line extension. To a cross section of them, SBCTA’s action in accepting and actuating Wolfe’s recommendation was a shortsighted miscarriage of policy. They believed the heavy rail, single-track MetroLink System was an inferior mass transit modality that should not have been used in evaluating the potential for the light rail, dual track Gold Line. Moreover, the substitute strategies Wolfe was marshaling as an alternative to ending rush hour gridlock – augmenting San Bernardino County’s freeway system with tole lanes – would ultimately prove futile and inadequate, they felt.
On July 8, 2024, largely at the instigation of Los Angeles County transportation officials and the importuning State Senator Anthony Portantino and Assemblyman Chris Holden, both of whose districts lie primarily in Los Angeles County but which overlap into western San Bernardino County, the California State Transportation Agency earmarked just under $500 million to be used to extend the Gold Line into San Bernardino County.
This brought the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority back on board for a light rail ride between Claremont and Montclair. Completion of the Gold Line to Claremont was anticipated for late 2026 to early 2027, at which point the construction of the line through to Montclair was to begin. The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority, newly enthusiastic about the prospect for a light rail system into the heart of the Inland Empire, set aside $80 million for the project, $37,199,643 of which was to be expended toward right-of-way acquisition and other engineering and preparatory work for the project.
This week, however, the entire SBCTA board reconsidered that commitment.
Under an item listed as “Gold Line to Montclair Project Cost Increase and Funding Request,” the authority staff had originally laid out four options, ranging from simply “receiv[ing] an update on the Gold Line to Montclair Project” to “provid[ing] direction on what the recommendation should be in response to the recent funding request from the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority” to “approv[ing] keeping $37,199,643 in funding in place until a decision is made regarding how to proceed” to “establish[ing] an ad hoc committee to work with staff to examine alternatives to the Gold Line Extension for the City of Montclair.”
Before the meeting began, however, the option of “provid[ing] direction on what the recommendation should be in response to the recent funding request from the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority” was changed to “mak[ing] a determination, based on finalization of the memorandum of understanding with the Gold Line Construction Authority and receipt of legal opinion on construction manager at risk pre-production activities in San Bernardino County, as to how to proceed with the memorandum of understanding.”
The SBCTA staff report for the item expressed concern about the increasing cost estimates for the completion of the project.
“The latest project cost to complete the San Bernardino County segment has gone up and is now estimated at $145 million to $244 million, with the low end of the range representing the latest estimate developed for the project by the construction authority and the high end of the range representing the bid previously received by the construction authority from the design-build procurement process,” according to the staff report. “The total allocation previously approved by the board for the project is $39 million, of which $1.9 million has been expended on prior phase work. When combined with the $41 million of 2018 TIRCP [Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program] funds awarded to the San Bernardino County portion of the Project, a total of $80 million has been allocated to the Project with $78.1 million available for remaining project work.”
The staff report continued, “SBCTA will need to increase the funding for the remaining project work and allocate at least an additional $67 million, and potentially up to $166 million, to cover the current funding gap. Further, SBCTA staff recommends allocating an additional $4 million to $7 million to a project funding reserve to fund work SBCTA deems necessary but is not included in the Construction Authority’s “baseline” project. In 2018, the estimated cost to complete the work in San Bernardino County was $80 million and now, in 2025, the estimated cost to complete the work in San Bernardino County is $145 million to $244 million – which is an increase of 80% to 300% in seven years.”
The SBCTA board had designated Montclair Mayor John Dutrey and Chino Hills Councilman Ray Marquez to negotiate with the Gold Line Extension Authority in Los Angles County to iron out issues that had cropped up as the memorandum of understanding between the Los Angeles Metro Authority and SBCTA with regard to the project.
Marquez on Wednesday indicated that incomplete progress had been made in coming to an accommodation with Los Angeles Metro had been achieved and recommended, as did Dutrey, that San Bernardino County transportation officials move forward with the project while further discussion over those issues takes place.
Marquez said that there had been previous resolve in San Bernardino County to commit up to $125 million to the project and that if “there was anything above that or higher… we’d go outside looking for money.” He said a dialogue had begun with Congresswoman Norma Torres about getting federal funds, but that those options had not yet been pursued.” Conceding that “The memorandum of understanding has been sort of difficult because the construction authority has thirty-plus miles that they’ve built as far as rail, 23 stations, but it’s all been in LA County. We are now moving into San Bernardino County and the way we do business is different from how they do business. Yes, we do want control. We want to make sure that once we build it, we know what the ramifications are going to be and our liabilities for the future years. I want to thank the authority because I know initially when we started this about 14 months ago, there was no movement on trying to work with us to work out these issues or problems. Are we where we need to be today? No, we’re not. But we’re moving forward on this.”
Marquez said he understood the reluctance of the SBCTA board members who were concerned about joining in with the much larger and more powerful Los Angeles Metro, but indicated his belief that the final product – a continuous high-volume light rail project linking the two counties in a way that will reduce the volume of traffic on the local freeway system by as many as 25,000 vehicles per day – is worth the expenditure and effort.
“We’ve worked so hard on this the last 20-plus years,” Marquez said. “I think we’re getting there.”
Ontario Councilman Alan Wapner, who six years ago was in favor of staying the course on the project at that time when the balance of the board’s transit committee followed Wolfe’s recommendation to discontinue it, proved this week to be a key defector from the Gold Line extension’s support network.
“I don’t support continuing this thing,” Wapner said. “I think the benefit of the Gold Line coming into Montclair are incredible. I’m not going to argue that at all. While I’m concerned about the cost, I’m not as much concerned about how much money it costs. I’m more concerned about what’s being proposed as far as a governance model from a policy level.”
Wapner likened going ahead with the project to “handing an open check to the construction authority to build anything they want to at our cost. I fully anticipated that once across county lines, things would reverse, that SBCTA would be the controlling factor, that we would get all the votes.”
Wapner indicated he would favor improving the MetroLink system. “I think that we really need to make an earnest effort of improving rail service to Montclair, as much money as it costs, whatever we need to do. We owe it to the community and the private development. Frankly, I would pay attention to the Gold Line. I think it’s a great project, but only if we have control of where our money’s going. It just makes no sense. I don’t know anyone in good conscience could take their taxpayer money and hand it over to another agency for 100 percent of control where we receive 100 percent of their risk and expense.”
It was Wapner’s suggestion that the Gold Line Construction Authority was commandeering San Bernardino County tax money that thereafter formed the basis of other members of the SBCTA board taking a stand against proceeding with the Gold Line extension.
Rialto Mayor Joe Bara Sr. said, “At the last board meeting we talked about how much say-so we would have, not only in terms of the amount of dollars we would be putting in, but how much say-so we would be on that board, and I don’t believe we would have any kind of authority in terms of even what happens in the future or what happens there because we’re not going to be on that board that makes that decision. Yet, they’re asking us to fund the additional dollars out here.”
Hesperia City Councilmember Josh Pullen piled on. “L.A. is just using us,” he said.
Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman said, “I don’t want to give up on the memorandum of understanding because that’s a template for us to use [for] later agreements that we have to figure out.” He said he had misgivings about the situation generally “if we don’t figure out how to do regional projects with neighboring entities.”
After Montclair Mayor John Dutrey asked the board to consider extending the memorandum of understanding negotiations through September 29, the board, without San Bernardino County First District Supervisor and Victorville Councilwoman Debra Jones present, considered a motion by Highland City Councilman Larry McCallon that was seconded by Big Bear Lake Councilman Rick Herrick which called for discontinuing the memorandum of understanding discussions with the Metro Rail Construction Authority, to discontinue the funding of the Gold Line project extension, to use the $37 million to provide more frequent departures and arrivals on the MetroLink line, to form an ad hoc committee to look at alternatives to the Gold Line.
That motion carried 14-to-11, with support from Barstow Mayor Tim Silva, Big Bear Lake Councilman Rick Herrick, Colton Mayor Frank Navarro, Grand Terrace Mayor Bill Hussey, Highland Councilman Larry McCallon, Needles Mayor Janet Jernigan, Ontario Councilman Alan Wapner, Rancho Cucamonga Mayor L. Dennis Michael, Redlands Mayor Mario Saucedo, Rialto Mayor Joe Baca, San Bernardino Mayor Helen Tran, Twentynine Palms Councilman Daniel Mintz Sr, Yucaipa Councilwoman Judy Woolsey, Third District Supervisor Dawn Rowe and Fifth District Supervisor Joe Baca Jr. Those opposing the motion were Adelanto councilman Daniel Ramos, Chino Mayor Eunice Ulloa, Chino Hills Councilman Ray Marquez Fontana Mayor Acquanetta Warren, Hesperia City Councilman Josh Pullen, Loma Linda Councilman Ronald Dailey, Montclair Mayor John Dutrey. Upland Mayor Bill Velto Yucca Valley Councilman Rick Dennison, Second District County Supervisor Jesse Armendareza and Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman or Supervisor County of San Bernardino Curt Hagman.
Curiously, despite his statement excoriating Los Angeles County transportation officials for taking control over San Bernardino County tax money intended for transportation projects, Pullen opposed McCallon’s motion.
Foothill Gold Line Chief Executive Officer Habib F. Balian in response to the SBCTA board vote, on Wednesday told the Sentinel, “As you know, the construction authority is now underway with the first of two procurements to deliver the final Foothill Gold Line project segment from Pomona to Claremont and Montclair. The first request for proposals for design/engineering services was issued this past June, with proposals due next month. This follows Los Angeles County committing nearly $800 million last year to complete its portion of the project, and meets the schedule approved by the construction authority board earlier this year. As part of the ongoing procurement, the Los Angeles County portion of the project was kept separate from the San Bernardino County portion to allow clear understanding of the different costs for each county, and also to allow more time for SBCTA to agree to fund the design work.” Bailan continued “[T]he SBCTA board of directors met today and had a lengthy discussion on whether or not to continue to support completing the Foothill Gold Line to Montclair. Although SBCTA has been planning for the project for more than two decades (since 2004, when the project was included in the county’s successful half-cent sales tax measure; and since 2012, when the construction authority’s enabling legislation was updated to extend the agency’s authority to build to Montclair), the SBCTA board today decided to stop negotiating a memorandum of understanding with the construction authority, not approve the funding needed to include the Montclair extension with the design procurement currently underway, and directed their staff to study options to connect Montclair with improved transit using the $37 million in local funding the agency has been holding to complete the Foothill Gold Line to Montclair.”
Bailan said, “The construction authority has been working closely with SBCTA over the past several months to come to agreement on a working relationship in which the construction authority has the authority to design and build the project and SBCTA has significant opportunities to provide input into the process. But SBCTA did not accept the terms of that agreement; and today their board confirmed their fundamental concern – not wanting an outside agency having authority to make decisions in their county. This is despite the construction authority’s statutorily mandated role to plan, design and build the project; as well as our successful track record of completing $3 billion of projects on time and on budget.”
Bailan noted, “The construction authority’s board chairman, Claremont Council Member Ed Reece, attended today’s meeting and spoke about the significant benefits the project would have for San Bernardino County. He and Foothill Gold Line Joint Powers Authority Secretary/Treasurer, Montclair Council Member Bill Ruh both highlighted the economic and mobility benefits of the project for San Bernardino County and its residents. Both quoted from the recent economic analysis that showed San Bernardino County is expected to gain $1.4 million for every $1 million they invest in the construction, and $3.5 million for every $1 million they invest in operation of the line. These benefits are in addition to the jobs and labor income associated with activities both during construction and after operations; as well as the economic impact of the transit-oriented developments planned around the future Montclair light rail station. Additionally, they highlighted the strong relationship between people living in each county and traveling for work to the other (both from San Bernardino County to Los Angeles and vice versa), including tens of thousands traveling between cities in western San Bernardino County and the Foothill Gold Line cities in Los Angeles County.” Today’s vote was not unanimous and went against a motion presented by Montclair Mayor John Dutrey and Chino Hills Council Member Ray Marquez to continue to work on the memorandum of understanding. While it is not the end of the line for the Gold Line to reach Montclair, today’s vote was a significant setback, as it results in the Montclair extension not moving forward simultaneously with the Claremont portion of the final project segment. In the coming weeks, the construction authority staff and board will discuss next steps.”
-Mark Gutglueck