LA County seeks state tax aid after river bike path cost rolls past $1B

A planned bike path here along the L.A. River went from a $365 million project to $1 billion

And now the county wants to use state funds to foot that bill. That bike path was approved by voters in 2016 as part of Measure M to raise the sales tax to help pay for numerous projects

Originally, the eight-mile path was supposed to cost $365 million. But nine years later, that project has stalled and the price tag has reached a billion dollars

If we had the money that it would have taken when we first started talking about this nine years ago, as you say, or whatever time you want to link it to, it would have been a heck of a lot cheaper

Metro has taken a very long time in coming up with a plan, and the plan that they have, they can't afford

Besides costs naturally rising, Schneider said the construction plan was too pricey to begin with

They dramatically over-engineered it. For example, instead of having a bike path

on one side of the river with connections at existing over-crossings, they insisted that the path

is on both sides of the river. They've always chosen the most expensive possible option

And don get me wrong I think their plan beautiful If money was no object I would love it Blumenfield said his district has lined up million for the project The bids came back at closer to million so that wasn able to happen So we now rebidding it

While it will take the partnership of districts like Blumenfield's, this is an L.A. Metro project

There's been no leader on the Metro board that's made this project a priority. So that's kind of how Metro works

There's a lot of projects, and unless you have a champion, it doesn't move very quickly. Last month, Metro officials said there's around $433 million available for the project, well short of a billion

Officials have since floated the idea of getting state grants to bridge the gap. 25% of Californians live in L.A. County, but that would mean the other 75% would help foot the bill

Other money could come from an agreement between numerous entities to get funding elsewhere

Cobbling together this kind of money is never an easy task. The hope was to have this ready for the 2028 Olympic Games in L.A

There's no realistic way Metro's plan gets done. The existing plan gets done by 2028

For Straight Arrow News, I'm Dan Levin at the L.A. River. For more unbiased, fact-driven news, download the Straight Arrow News mobile app today or go to san.com