Two Los Angeles County legislators are pressuring San Bernardino County to extend the Gold Line light-rail from the San Gabriel Valley into Ontario International Airport, making their arguments in an unprecedented appearance before the county’s transportation agency earlier this week.

State Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Canada Flintridge and Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, came armed Wednesday, March 4, with legislation that would create construction authorities to do the work, in effect wresting control from the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority but requiring the agency to fund the $1.5 billion project.

Portantino’s bill, SB 1390, introduced on Feb. 21, goes further than the bill Holden introduced in January. The newer bill would transfer taxpayer funds and SBCTA-owned land within the proposed rail right-of-way to a state-created independent construction authority.

Pushback was swift. The SBCTA board opposed both bills and passed a motion reasserting itself as the sole authority to plan, design and build new mass transit projects in San Bernardino County. For the past several months, SBCTA has proposed alternatives to the Gold Line, now renamed the “L” Line, including an enhanced service on Metrolink heavy-rail tracks from the Rancho Cucamonga Station taking passengers on smaller, German-made, zero-emission locomotives. This possible change in direction has set off a firestorm of disagreement over a rail project decades away.

Not only does SBCTA see the two bills as Los Angeles County interference in San Bernardino County transit decisions, but the agency resents attempts by Sacramento to impose one option for rail service to ONT instead of many, saying it will resist any effort to take away local control.

“It really is undermining the will of the voters in San Bernardino County. It is very troubling they are taking this approach,” Ray Wolfe, SBCTA executive director, said in an interview Thursday, March 5.

The fierce battle between the two counties and now, legislators in Sacramento, is more than a turf squabble. It places the building of a rail line to serve Ontario airport in question and also, may jeopardize extension of LA Metro’s Gold Line to Claremont and Montclair, lawmakers say. Airport officials, along with those from Ontario and Montclair, say the airport needs a direct rail line into the terminals if it is to grow and reach its potential of flying 35 million passengers a year by 2045.

Who wins will determine the kind of rail service — if any — and how deep the agencies will have to reach into San Bernardino County taxpayers’ pockets to build it and operate it.

SB 1390 by Portantino, would create the Montclair to Ontario Airport Construction Authority. The new agency would plan, design and build the light-rail line from Montclair to ONT. The bill requires SBCTA to transfer all money for this project to the new agency, including monies not yet assigned for the next 11 years, Wolfe said. Also, all property, including land within the right-of-way, would be given to the new agency. Holden’s bill also sets up a separate construction authority, but doesn’t include funding details.

Portantino’s construction agency would consist of seven voting members, one each from the cities of Montclair, Ontario, Rancho Cucamonga, Upland, as well as representatives from LA Metro, Ontario International Airport Authority and SBCTA.

Ontario Councilman Alan Wapner, OIAA board president and member of the SBCTA board, said the bills are a reversal to when OIAA resumed control of the airport from Los Angeles in 2016.

“We are not going to turn back control of our airport to the city or the county of Los Angeles,” he said. “To force us to commit unencumbered funds that our taxpayers voted for, including our right-of-way, to me is nonsensical.”

Portantino, in an interview Friday, said he is concerned the SBCTA will bypass Montclair, a city awaiting a promised Gold Line station for more than a decade and a key link in what would be a 7-mile line down to ONT. He said it is important to connect the Gold Line, which runs from downtown Los Angeles to Azusa and is currently being extended to Pomona, to a regional airport becoming increasingly popular with L.A. County residents.

“The anticipated demand on the airport from Los Angeles County residents will be significant and that is good for the region,” Portantino said.

A Southern California Association of Governments study shows that passengers from L.A. County are increasing and in the future will continue to rise. Portantino told the SBCTA board that the Gold Line option would reduce more vehicle miles traveled than other options, meaning it would remove the most cars from local roads and freeways and reduce air pollution.

The SBCTA points out, however, that current data shows about 75% of all people using ONT are from Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Rancho Cucamonga Mayor L. Dennis Michael said the SBCTA must build a rail system that serves all of San Bernardino County and helps L.A. County residents reach the airport without driving on crowded freeways. If the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority, which is building the Gold Line extension to Pomona, and the state Legislature can find the $450 million necessary to extend the line to Claremont, Michael said he would support the SBCTA paying the $100 million construction tab to bring it into Montclair. Wolfe said the SBCTA has set aside about $80 million of that cost.

But the city of Rancho Cucamonga favors a new idea — an enhanced Metrolink service from the Rancho Cucamonga station down to Ontario airport. Michael, in an interview Friday, said it would be the shortest route — about 3 miles — and cost far less than the Gold Line connection. Rancho Cucamonga has encouraged developers to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to build housing near this station on a former golf course.

“It needs connectivity to the airport,” Michael said.

At the meeting Wednesday, Holden emphasized that he wanted the SBCTA, LA Metro and the Gold Line construction authority to hammer out an agreement on what projects would be built. If they agree to connect the enhanced Metrolink service westward to Montclair’s TransCenter, that would allow passengers to get off the Gold Line in Montclair and ride the new Metrolink service to Rancho Cucamonga. From there, passengers would change trains to catch the dedicated train to ONT.

The Gold Line, as planned, would provide non-stop service to ONT. It currently runs at 7-minutes-or-less intervals during rush hours. The enhanced, zero-emission Metrolink units would run about every 30 minutes, Wolfe said.

Holden said either option must not exclude Montclair, which also has invested in new housing projects around its TransCenter after being assured the Gold Line would reach across the county into their city. “To stop that now is not an acceptable option,” Holden told the SBCTA board. He said he would drop his bill if Montclair was included in some kind of rail-airport connection link.

On the same day the two legislators discussed their bills, the SBCTA board approved a $3 mlllion rail access analysis study. It will examine: Metro light-rail service from the Montclair TransCenter; enhanced Metrolink service using zero-emission trains (modeled after one to be used on the Redlands-to-San Bernardino line in 2024) from Rancho Cucamonga; adding passenger service to the Union Pacific freight line that runs north of the airport; emerging technology, including a dual-tunnel system to run mini electric vehicles, as proposed by Elon Musk’s The Boring Company, based in Hawthorne.

Portantino told the board he wondered if the study would be biased toward the Metrolink service favored by Wolfe.

“There is fear and concern that there is a prescribed outcome from the study and it is not going to be favorable to the Gold Line extension,” he said at the meeting. “I personally like the Gold Line light-rail as a concept and that was the original intent. That’s not being given its rightful seat at the table.”

The discussion of the two bills and the Ontario airport rail connections will continue before the Gold Line construction authority board at noon, Wednesday, March 11, at 406 E. Huntington Drive, Suite 202, Monrovia.