LA faces funding shortage for transportation projects, group says

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A new report outlines the most critical transportation projects in Los Angeles - but there's little funding for most of them.

The group TRIP (The Road Information Program) examined about 125 projects across California and labeled them with green, yellow or red lights to indicate if they had funding available.

"Of the 30 projects we have identified here in the LA area, half of those are rated as red-light projects because there is not enough funding to proceed at least for the next five years," said Caroline Kelly with TRIP.

Other projects only have partial funding, such as extending the Metro Green line to Los Angeles International Airport, extending the Purple line to Century City and adding capacity to I-5 and to the 405 freeway in Orange County.

Transportation officials say complicating things is the expectation that another 750,000 people will move to Los Angeles County in the next 10 years.

Metro has a plan to get more money for transportation in Southern California, if voters are willing to approve another hike in the Los Angeles County sales tax.

Next month the Metro board will vote whether to place a measure on the November ballot asking voters for a half cent sales tax increase. If approved it could raise the county tax to one of the highest in the nation.