COVID stimulus: GOP ridicules money for ‘Nancy Pelosi’s subway’
The long-awaited project extending BART service through downtown San Jose is being roped into the battle over the $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus package in Washington.
Congressional Republicans have seized on an estimated $141 million in funding for the BART extension that was included in the bill that passed out of the House Friday morning, saying it shows Democrats are loading the relief package up with excess spending.
They’ve even christened the project with a head-scratching nickname: “Nancy Pelosi’s subway” was how House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy referred to the project at a press conference he called to criticize it Friday. Senate Republicans called it “Nancy Pelosi’s Silicon Valley subway” in a tweet Wednesday.
Today, House Republicans are introducing a motion to shift the $140 million allocated to Nancy Pelosi’s subway to grants that would be used for mental services for children. Democrats will have to go on the record—which one will they support? https://t.co/3otgzJvSvm
— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) February 26, 2021
Of course, the BART extension isn’t in Nancy Pelosi’s turf: it will run from the newly opened Berryessa Station on the north side of San Jose through downtown and back up to Santa Clara.
Call it the political equivalent of a 49ers TV broadcast that shows the Golden Gate Bridge, when the game is being played in the South Bay — Zoe Lofgren and Ro Khanna, who represent the districts where the four new stations will go, aren’t nearly as big of villains to Republicans as the House Speaker.
In a more geographically accurate line of criticism, a spokesman for Republicans on the Senate Banking Committee told Fox Business, which first reported on the allocation, that the funding was an earmark helping “Big Tech.” Republicans have also highlighted local concerns about the rising cost and slipping schedule of the $6.9 billion extension, which is expected to open in 2029 or 2030.
The BART extension is far from the only project that would get funding through the stimulus, which includes money for infrastructure improvements all over the country.
Elsewhere in the Bay Area, estimates show the package would give $47 million to the project electrifying Caltrain service, according to a Metropolitan Transportation Commission spokesman. Other programs to increase BART’s capacity through the Transbay Tube and build Muni’s central subway — ones that actually are in Nancy Pelosi’s district — would get $77 million and $23 million, respectively.
While $141 million is nothing to sneeze at, it represents just 2% of the total cost of the South Bay BART extension, the largest infrastructure project in Santa Clara County’s history.
Anyone up in arms over that funding really won’t like this: The project is expected to receive more than 10 times as much money — over $1.7 billion — through a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation. The department’s Federal Transit Administration has already given the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, which is building the extension, $225 million toward that allocation.
VTA spokeswoman Bernice Alaniz said the $141 million in the COVID bill is separate from the Department of Transportation grant, and is “intended to help with the local share for the project,” which may be affected by the uncertain pandemic economy. Three-quarters of the project’s cost is coming from local sources, such as sales taxes and bridge toll hikes that were approved by voters.