Deadline for subway to sea is a literal one

Let's begin with the quote of the week, courtesy of Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl:

"My plan is to be alive when the subway to the sea happens."

It's hard to knock such a plan. It may also be worth noting that Rosendahl is 62, and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics show that his life expectancy is about 81. In other words, subway proponents and Rosendahl should mark the year 2026 on their calendars.

Rosendahl's chances were increased last week when Congress repealed a ban on federal funding of subway tunneling in parts of the city. The repeal is part of a $516-billion appropriations bill that President Bush is expected to sign.

The repeal triggered a City Hall news conference at Union Station, where Rosendahl made his remarks, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he's working on a funding plan.

Attentive readers may recall that the subway-to-the-sea extension from its terminus at Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue to Santa Monica was one of the big promises Villaraigosa made during his 2005 campaign.

So why doesn't he have a funding plan already -- now that he's been in office more than 900 days?

I asked the mayor that question at the news conference. Here's his response:

"You'd rain on any parade, wouldn't you? Let me just say, Stevie -- and you're at your best when you're raining on parades. Let me explain something. . . . Tom Bradley ran for mayor and said he would get a subway in 18 months, and it took 18 years. Yet we all know him as the father of the subway . . .

"If this was so easy, someone would have done it a long time ago," the mayor added.

This, in fact, is a very fair point for the mayor to make. The ban on tunneling on the Westside was put in place 22 years ago out of safety concerns by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), who later changed his mind after new evidence showed that tunneling would be safe and credited the mayor with creating the momentum to get the ban repealed.

"I offered to reopen this issue 10 years ago," Waxman said. "But the MTA wasn't interested because they didn't have the money. The mayor said he wanted the option" to pursue the subway project.

And Waxman, added, the mayor was persuasive.

What's next?