LA Metro is concerned that the Trump Administration will cut off crucial federal funding for planned rail lines, including a key light rail line for southeast Los Angeles County.
The Los Angeles County transit agency’s top government relations director recently spoke about the possible impact to funding the Southeast Gateway Line, a 19.3-mile line that would take riders from Artesia to the Slauson/A Line Station, and in the second phase, travel north to downtown Los Angeles.
Map shows the route of the planned Southeast Gateway Line. (courtesy of LA Metro)
At a meeting of the Gateway Cities Council of Governments on Nov. 6, Raffi Hamparian, LA Metro’s deputy executive officer for government relations, said a newly Republican-controlled Senate — including new chairs of transportation committees, as well as new personnel appointed by Trump to run the Federal Transit Administration — could stymie future federal transit dollars.
“We’ve got our radar up,” Hamparian said. “We may initially have some challenges with some of the new folks who will take senior positions at the White House, and at the U.S. Department of Transportation.”
Metro is looking for funding from federal “New Starts” program, part of the federal 2026 budget. “On January 20, the ultimate responsibility for New Starts, and that budget, will fall to the Trump Administration,” Hamparian said. “It is incredibly important our engagement with the new team is serious and sober, and we make a clear case that the project is a big, big boost for the southeast part of Los Angeles County.”
Federal dollars are often used to help build LA Metro’s new rail lines and rail extensions, seen as a way to remove single-passenger vehicles from clogged freeways and thoroughfares, while reducing smog and greenhouse gases that cause global climate change.
At stake is the long-standing Capital Investment Grant (CIG) program, which funnels money for transportation projects through the FTA and the White House for capital projects planned by transit agencies, including LA Metro.
“The big issue we will have to square with, with the new executive branch, the Trump Administration, is re-visiting the value of the FTA Capital Investment Grant program,” Hamparian told the southeast cities group.
In the next breath he said Trump had not looked favorably on the program in the past.
In his first administration, roughly from January 2017 to January 2020, Trump tried to kill the federal CIG program, Hamparian explained. That effort did not succeed. Under President Joe Biden, the program has helped fund several LA Metro projects, including the East San Fernando Valley light-rail project that is under construction.
The Southeast Gateway Line is expected to cost between $7.2 billion and $9 billion. The FTA listed the project at $8.6 billion. Metro did not say exactly how much has been put aside for construction, but some officials have said it is about $2.5 billion, leaving a big funding gap.
Whittier City Councilmember Fernando Dutra, who is an LA Metro board vice-chair and chair of the Gateway Cities COG Transportation Committee, asked Hamparian about future funding to build the rail line at the Nov. 6 meeting.
“It does need federal funding, absolutely,” Dutra said on Friday, Nov. 8, regarding the Southeast Gateway Line. It would run through Artesia, Cerritos, Bellflower, Paramount, Downey, South Gate, Cudahy, Bell, Huntington Park, Vernon and unincorporated Florence-Graham, before connecting to downtown Los Angeles in a later phase.
“There seems to be a lot of anxiety surrounding the new administration’s philosophy on transportation,” Dutra said.
Supervisor Janice Hahn, chair of the LA Metro board, reveals the new name of the West Santa Ana Branch light-rail project at a rebranding event on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024 in Bellflower. It is now called the Southeast Gateway Line. (photo courtesy of Supervisor Hahn’s Office).
Los Angeles County Supervisor and Metro Board Chair Janice Hahn, who has spearheaded this line by lobbying Washington D.C. and Sacramento for added funding, indicated she’s very much aware of how a Trump Administration could dry up federal funds.
“We need to be clear-eyed about how much federal support we can expect to get for the Southeast Gateway Line from a future Trump Administration,” Hahn said in an emailed response on Friday. “That doesn’t mean we won’t keep doing everything we can to advance this project.”
Dutra said he has been meeting with Hamparian for the last six months, asking him and Metro to prepare should Trump win the presidency and threaten federal dollars for transportation projects in L.A. County, a deeply blue county that overwhelmingly voted for Kamala Harris.
He said LA Metro hired a new staffer familiar with the first Trump presidency to help with lobbying for funding.
Dutra said he was feeling a “cautious optimism” that the Trump Administration would see the merits in funding new local rail routes, especially in a county choked with smog and traffic. In addition, nearly every new Metro rail line has attracted new housing starts. “The new administration is focused on new housing. If you tie transportation and housing together, that adds up to support for these new railways” he said.
The project’s corridor has high projected population and employment densities, five times higher than L.A. County, with 44% of the population below the poverty line and 18% of households that do not own a car.
The idea of low-income, working families needing a convenient, and less costly transportation method to get to work, school and doctor’s appointments may appeal to Trump’s base, Dutra said. “Yes, the administration is looking out for the working person,” he said.
Construction of the ambitious line would create 40,000 jobs. This does not include indirect economic activity, such as new housing construction and new small businesses, Dutra said.
The project is environmentally cleared, supported by the local cities along the route, and was approved by the FTA as a project that could accept federal funds in late August.
“I am going to assume they (Trump Administration) will respect the well thought-out plans that have been put in place,” Dutra said.
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LA Metro board OKs new light-rail line from Artesia to Union Station
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