405 Widening Goes Forward

The Daily News is reporting that yesterday the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board agreed to start construction on that new 10-mile northbound car-pool lane on the San Diego Freeway (it'd go from the Monica Freeway to the Ventura Freeway) despite the fact that funding for completion isn't yet available. Via the paper: "Metro has just $372 million, including $190 million in federal stimulus money, to build the project. Ultimately, it needs to raise $614 million — money originally approved by voters in a bond measure but withheld by the state as it grappled with its massive budget deficit. Still, Metro officials are optimistic about getting the money through future bond sales." Doug Failing, Caltrans District 7 director tells the paper that the job growth (18,000 construction jobs will come out of it) is an important part of the project. It was just a few weeks ago that the controversial project (six homes will be destroyed eminent domain proceedings) was being called dead in the water because of funding issues. [Daily News]