MST’s electric trolley project still held up by pension dispute.

California’s pension reform is in the way of Monterey-Salinas Transit’s electric trolley ambitions.

Service cuts were narrowly avoided in early June, when MST and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1225 reached an agreement allowing the U.S. Department of Labor to release six months of federal operations funding.

MST was the only transit agency in the state to negotiate such a reprieve, according to MST Assistant General Manager Hunter Harvath. But the agreement didn’t resolve the bigger dispute between transit unions, the feds and the state over California’s Public Employee Pension Reform Act (PEPRA).

The unions argue PEPRA violates the Federal Transit Act, which lets unions object to federal transit funding that may impact collective bargaining. The impasse is holding up almost $1 billion statewide, including more than $7 million in capital funding at MST – $1.7 million of that for trolley electrification.

“We share the community’s interest in providing the service, which is why we went to great lengths to work out terms permitting the funding of the operating grant,” says Robert Molofsky, general counsel for ATU international.

Until the PEPRA issue is resolved, federal funds for MST’s capital projects are frozen.

MST’s first electric trolley will be converted from a used diesel trolley and look no different from the ones now carrying passengers through Monterey. Rather than being powered from overhead wires like San Francisco’s MUNI trolleys, it would carry a battery in its undercarriage juiced by chargers in the asphalt.

MST has applied for $400,000 in funds from the Monterey Bay Unified Air Pollution Control District, enough to bring the total to the $2.1 million needed.