Public Transit: Legislature in Driver’s Seat

With demands growing for a shake-up of the agencies that govern public transit in Los Angeles, attention is focusing on the Legislature, the only government body that can make the changes.

The Assembly’s chief architect of a proposed RTD reorganization, Chairman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda) of the Transportation Committee, said Tuesday that he is considering introducing legislation that would substitute a new countywide agency for the two bodies now responsible for regional transit. Those bodies are the Southern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

Transit reorganization demands by Katz, Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys), and others follow a series of apparent RTD management breakdowns over such problems as absenteeism, fast-rising administrative expenses, little-regulated expense spending by executives and board members and use of drugs by employees, including drivers.

Concern About Management

The legislator-critics have expressed the fear that the management that is having trouble operating a bus system may be unable to supervise the construction and operation of the Metro Rail subway system. Work is beginning on the subway portion of the RTD project.

Although members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and other local political leaders have also blasted the RTD and have demanded changes, legislators and aides here said there is little that local officials can do about it.

“They can’t make changes without the Legislature,” Katz said.

That is because state law created the complex transit administration in Los Angeles County, divided between two big appointed bodies, the RTD board and the county transit commission.

Robbins also said changes are needed to correct management failures. “Under the current system, there is no way to get to the people who are responsible,” he said.

Katz has scheduled a committee hearing in Los Angeles on Feb. 12 to hear reorganization suggestions from several academic transit experts and from local officials.

Leaning Toward One Board

But even before the hearing, he said he is leaning toward a bill that would create a new, powerful transit governing board in the county that would assume the power of the RTD and the county Transportation Commission. Katz said he would also favor such a super agency taking over other transportation responsibilities. He said an example would be improving street traffic control to speed automobile traffic.

Katz said he is alarmed by the fact that RTD has started work on the Metro Rail subway downtown, while nearby the Transportation Commission is planning to begin work on a light rail line, and that the City of Los Angeles is doing the planning for traffic during all the construction.

“It’s frightening,” he said. “You almost get the impression that the RTD will tear up a street and pave it and the next day the LATC will tear up the street again.”

Katz said the board that he envisions would be made up mostly of members elected by the voters--either by district or at large. A minority of the members would be appointed by local officials and agencies.

Robbins’ Proposed Change

Robbins has also proposed a major change: placing the RTD under the supervision of an elected board. He has made the proposal for several years, with the latest version envisioning transit to be run by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

The supervisors, reacting to the furor over RTD management, ordered their staff to study how other urban areas operate combined bus and rail systems. That report, due Jan. 27, may lead to the supervisors’ own proposal for transit reorganization.

Katz said he expects substantial opposition to any changes to come from supporters of the present RTD setup and the county Transportation Commission, as well as from representatives of smaller communities in the county with their own transit systems, which are partially financed by funds from the commission.