The Claremont City Council approved a plan Sept. 14 to allow the Gold Line light rail to extend through Claremont, marking a major step forward for a project that has caused some controversy at the Claremont Colleges.

Claremont was the last city to submit its plan to accommodate the Gold Line Foothill Extension, a billion-dollar project that would connect the Inland Empire to downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena by light rail.

Proponents of the extension have argued that it will make commuting within the L.A. area more convenient and reduce highway congestion in one of America’s most car-dependent regions. Opponents, including some 5-C students, say the line will have to be funded by an increase in L.A. bus fares, which will be hard on the city’s poorest residents.

The council broke from its usual procedure in order to make a quick decision on the Gold Line question, which council members considered urgent. Of the council’s five voting members, only Corey Calaycay voted against the plan.

With Claremont’s approval, the Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority can now begin preparing reports on the extension’s environmental impact, one of the requirements to secure federal stimulus money.

Claremont Mayor Pro Tem Sam Pedroza, who also votes on the Gold Line Authority, said Gold Line is in a hurry to file environmental impact reports because of recent Congressional interest in creating jobs with stimulus money, which might include funding for the extension.

The plan approved by the council calls for the Gold Line to come through Claremont on four tracks instead of three, in keeping with a decision by the California Public Utilities Commission. The council also voted to have the Gold Line stop at Claremont’s train depot, not at an alternate location where a parking lot currently stands.

Under this plan, the city will have to take some land from Paul Wheeler, an architect who owns the business park just south of the train depot.

Wheeler said that if he loses the northernmost part of his property, which is where the Gold Line will run, he is not sure how he will set up emergency access for firetrucks and keep his property in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Still, he said, he trusts the local government to help him find a solution.

“I’ll work things out,” he said. “It isn’t a street fight or anything.”

Calaycay said he voted against the proposal because he was concerned about Wheeler’s property and disturbed by what he heard at the Sept. 14 meeting from council member Peter Yao, who suggested that the City of Claremont should have done more to plan ahead for the Gold Line.

“City staff dropped the ball by not staying on top of the Gold Line decision schedule,” Yao wrote in an e-mail to The Student Life. “Claremont was clearly at fault, not the Construction Authority.”

Yao is the City Council’s representative to the Metro Gold Line Phase II Joint Powers Authority.

“I felt like I couldn’t even trust what I was being told,” Calaycay said of his reaction to Yao’s comments, adding that Sept. 14 was the first time he learned that Claremont was the last city to approve a plan for the Gold Line. “We have a responsibility to make sure that our plans are represented accurately to property owners before they’re taken out of our hands.”

However, Calaycay said he, like his fellow council members, would welcome a Gold Line stop in Claremont.

“There’s no question that the Gold Line is going to be good for our community,” he said.

Claremont Mayor Linda Elderkin, who voted in favor of the Gold Line plan but said the approval process should have included more community input, said she agreed that the Gold Line would bring positive change.

“We’re all interested in increasing the level of public transportation,” Elderkin said. “So, although I was dissatisfied with the process, I am very supportive of the Gold Line.”

Pedroza said that some 5-C students had spoken out in favor of the Gold Line extension on the project’s social media website, but he did not know the names of any students who had been active on the issue.

“The students here have been very vocal in going to meetings with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and fighting ––vocally supporting––[to allow] the funding for the Gold Line to happen,” he said. “Their support will continue to be a benefit to the project.”

One reason for students to support the extension, Pedroza said, is that it would connect the Claremont Colleges with other colleges and universities in the region, including Citrus College, Pasadena City College, and the California Institute of Technology.

Some 5-C students, however, are not convinced that the extension is a responsible use of money. In an article published in The Claremont Progressive in April 2010, Rosa Greenberg PO ’12, Lauren Rettig SC ’11, Dan Berez PI ’13, Morgen Chalmiers PO ’13, and Joseph Morales PO ’14 argued that the extension would constitute “transit racism” by putting a greater financial burden on urban bus riders, most of whom are from minority ethnic groups.

“We need to ask ourselves if we are willing to benefit from the exploitation of the working class population of L.A. for the sake of a convenient train line that the majority of students (sic) will use, at most, once or twice a month,” the article adds.

The Gold Line Authority has said that most of the funding for the extension will come from Measure R, a sales tax increase approved by Los Angeles County voters in 2008 to benefit local transportation projects.

The next step for Gold Line proponents is to lobby Congress for stimulus money. Pedroza said he is optimistic about the extension’s prospects for bipartisan support, but getting Congress to make the Gold Line a priority will not be easy.

“It’s not a Republican or a Democrat issue,” he said. “It’s more of a fight over attention.”

Phase II B of the Gold Line, the portion that will include Claremont, is scheduled to be completed in 2015, but Pedroza called this estimate “optimistic.”