Robbins Offers Bill to Shift Control of Transit Planning

As he pledged he would do last month, state Sen. Alan Robbins on Monday introduced a bill to abolish the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission effective in 1988 and transfer its authority for transportation planning to the Board of Supervisors.

The measure, introduced on the first day of the new legislative session, also would require, at an unspecified date, that the board director of the Southern California Rapid Transit District be elected.

Robbins (D-Van Nuys) is seeking to revamp transportation planning as part of his campaign to force local officials to start Metro Rail construction in the San Fernando Valley next year and abandon a proposed trolley line on Chandler Boulevard in North Hollywood.

“I want decisions made by a board which is elected, so if someone screws up, the voters have someone to vote out of office,” Robbins said in an interview.

Now, Robbins contended, “there is no central planning agency” for transit issues. For instance, he said, the RTD is building the Metro Rail line, the transportation commission is planning light rail, and the state Department of Transportation is proposing a commuter train through the Valley.

At the same time, the 11-member county commission, which includes the five county supervisors and local government representatives, sets priorities for use of $850 million in government transportation funds each year.

The commission was established in 1976 by the Legislature.

Its staff has recommended that, instead of building the Valley section of Metro Rail, the agency consider a trolley line down Vineland Avenue from Chandler Boulevard in North Hollywood to Universal City.

Rick Richmond, executive director of the commission, said its board has not taken a position on Robbins’ proposal because the members have not seen the bill.

The commission is prepared to cooperate with Robbins and the Board of Supervisors “to the extent that what either one of them wants to do . . . is beneficial to transportation in L.A. County,” Richmond said.

In a prepared statement, Robbins said he has sought to give the Board of Supervisors authority to plan transportation because “if transportation is going to work, we need one agency in Los Angeles responsible for major planning decisions relating to Metro Rail, light rail, commuter rail and buses.”

But he acknowledged that the supervisors may prefer to turn the authority over to a new agency or to a newly constituted RTD.