INGLEWOOD – Longtime elected official Congresswoman Maxine Waters has thrown the city of Inglewood into a tailspin after she fired off a multi-page letter asking that the federal government NOT fully fund an ambitious transit project in Inglewood.
The letter was sent to U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg arguing that money would be “better spent on programs that improve access to affordable housing” rather than building a 1.6-mile transit project for private citizens use – Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke – for attendees to access their sports venues the Intuit Dome and SoFi Stadium.
The government has responded by removing a $200 million “down payment” from the current budget that Inglewood anticipated receiving.
All of the projects listed in the table have their cost estimates and ridership projections taken from the updated project summaries on the FTA website. In the case of four projects (Silicon Valley Phase II, Las Vegas Maryland Avenue, Houston University Corridor, and Seattle RapidRide I Line), the cost estimates in the March 1, 2024 CIG Dashboard are more recent than those in the project summaries, so the Dashboard totals are used instead.
The clear outliers are in California, starting with the Inglewood Transit Connector, which weighs in at an astounding capital cost of $470 thousand per estimated daily rider in its horizon year of 2040, of which the FTA is being asked to pay $235 thousand per daily rider. A quick look at the map shows you why. The project is less about connecting underserved neighborhoods than it is about connecting the new Rams stadium and the adjacent office and entertainment complex, which includes National Football League headquarters (and will soon include the new Clippers arena) to the Metrorail system. Projects like this, which use public moneys to give benefit to private interests (in this case, Stan Kroenke and his wife, Ann Walton Kroenke (yes, those Waltons) own the Rams and co-own the stadium and the entertainment complex where Hollywood Park racetrack used to be, along with a private equity fund), always raise the question of how much of the money should be raised via value capture (making real estate interests pay a portion of the increased value of their real estate stemming from public improvements).
Inglewood has a separate problem. The project has been fast-tracked because of the 2028 Olympics. From the perspective of getting people to and from these Olympic venues, the project must be operational from July 14-30, 2028. From an Olympics POV, a transit project that is behind schedule, inoperational, and has the roads all torn up in July 2028 is worse than no new project at all. (In the absence of the new rail project, more bus service can always be jury-rigged by that point.) This is why the last sentence of the updated project summary is so important: “The [Inglewood Transit Connector Joint Powers Authority] anticipates receipt of a Full Funding Grant Agreement in 2024 and opening for revenue service in early 2030.”
