BART Loses $175M from Fed for Airport Connector Due to Civil Rights Act Title VI Failure

Published on Friday, February 12, 2010
Last updated on 06:10PM, Friday, February 12, 2010


Ain't gonna happen!

Late this afternoon, the Federal Transit Administration issued a letter to BART rejecting their plan for addressing civil rights concerns regarding the Oakland Airport Connector and restated the FTA's concerns that BART's focus on this project could jeopardize a large amount of funding. In the letter, the FTA reminds BART that in addition to the $70M in AARA stimulus that are now at risk, there is an additional $25M in New Start funds, and an $80M loan that are also at risk, bringing the total that BART's failure to follow established procedures has jeopardized to to $175M.

"Given the fact that the initial Title VI complaint against BART was well founded, I am not in a position to award the ARRA funds to BART while the agency remains out of compliance," wrote Rogoff, in a stern letter that advised BART and the MTC to reallocate the funding to other projects.

Rogoff's letter says: "The likelihood of protracted litigation with the parties that made the initial complaint is extremely high. Given this situation, and the fact that we are now only 3 weeks away from the March 5 deadline, I must bring these discussions to a close so that we can work together to ensure that the ARRA funds can create and preserve jobs in the Bay Area," He goes on to say that their plan is rejected and emphasizes that even though the OAC project will not be moving ahead, BART must move ahead with getting into compliance with Title VI.

Oakland Local spoke with TransformCA director John Knox White, who has been closely tracking developments--and whose organization was one of the leaders in speaking out against the OAC. "There's no question that this is the death of the Oakland Airport Connector," said White. "The Bay Area's Metropolitan Transportation Commission already voted on January 27 to move the $70 million in stimulus funds to Bay Area transit agencies if BART didn't get a plan approved by February 17--and now that isn't going to happen. What is exciting here is that we have a chance to have a plan B that can bring the public back into dialogue around best ways to spend the money we're being allocated, and use it for something really productive."

"We think this is a victory for BART riders, transit workers and the community of East Oakland," said Wynn Hauser, spokesperson for Public Advocates, the legal team that filed the FTA complaint. "These are serious civil rights violations and we applaud FTA for following through on not only the letter but the spirit of Title IV. They are not saying you have to pay lip service, but you have to do this work."

Under the terms of the funding, funds can be allocated to save local jobs at transit agencies in all nine Bay Area counties and to support continued service on lines that might have been cut on AC Transit, BART, Caltrain, Golden Gate Transit, MUNI, Samtrans, VTA, ACE, CCCTA, ECCTA, Fairfield, LAVTA, MCTPA, Santa Rosa CityBus, Sonoma County Transit, WestCat, and transit in Fairfield, Union City, Vacaville, and Vallejo.The Federal Transit Administration started the investigation that led to this decision based on the civil rights complaint filed by Public Advocates on behalf of TransForm, Urban Habitat, and Genesis.

TAKE ACTION
There is a special Feb 17 meeting of the MTC at 1:30 PM that will discuss plans to reallocate the funding. Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter Lawrence D. Dahms Auditorium 101 - Eighth Street Oakland, California 94607.

Agenda is here and includes this PDF.