A funding plan to bring a streetcar back to Los Angeles for the first time since the 1960s was approved Wednesday by the Los Angeles City Council.
The four-mile streetcar would travel through key parts of downtown and could be funded through a combination of federal grants, county Metro funds and local dollars, according to a report prepared by the Office of the City Administrative Officer.
The council, on an 11-0 vote, approved $296 million for construction of the streetcar line while clearing the way for the Department of Transportation to move forward with pursuing up to $100 million in Federal Transit Administration “Small Starts” grant funds before a Sept. 7 deadline.
About $200 million for the project is set to come from the county voter-approved Measure M, and although the funds will not be available until 2053, and the council’s vote directs the Los Angeles Department of Transportation to submit a request to Metro to move the funding up through either a city-built or public-private partnership. None of the funds would come from the city’s general fund, with sources including Measure R Local Return Funds and a local tax approved by downtown voters to help fund the project, according to the CAO report.
Councilman Jose Huizar, who represents much of the downtown area, called the project “shovel-ready” with $590 million in secured funding for a 30-year construction, maintenance and operation plan.
“We’ve been working on this project for quite some time. There’s quite a bit of support for it in downtown and throughout the region for various reasons,” Huizar said Tuesday during a meeting of the Planning and Land Use Management Committee before it approved the plan.