Board Seeks Wider Powers Over RTD

The Los Angeles County Transportation Commission voted Wednesday to seek broad new powers over the much-criticized RTD, including the authority to conduct random audits of district expenditures.

The commission also voted to ask the Legislature for the power to determine whether the Southern California Rapid Transit District will remain the prime operator of the Metro Rail subway project. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who heads the transportation panel, opposed that portion of the commission’s action, saying that he had in “good faith” agreed a decade ago that RTD would operate Metro Rail.

Construction of the subway line has begun, with RTD supervising construction.

The commissioners’ action came a day after the unveiling of a county proposal that would eliminate both their panel and the RTD and replace them with a single authority with powers over the district’s bus and subway systems. The commission, however, expressed no opinion on the county plan because members had not had a chance to study it. But commissioners voted unanimously to oppose suggestions by some state lawmakers that the RTD and the Transportation Commission merge operations.

The commission’s recommendations, which it urged in the form of new state legislation, would considerably broaden its authority over both bus and rail operations now under the control of the RTD’s 11-member board.

In voting to ask for random auditing power, the commission sought to change current state law allowing it to audit the RTD only once every three years.

As for seeking authority to possibly strip the RTD of its control over Metro Rail, most members said that they would not be inclined to do so. But Bradley nevertheless said that the possibility of such legislation, which would negate state law designating the RTD as the Metro Rail operator, “troubles me.”

The panel also voted Wednesday to object to proposals by some state lawmakers, including state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) and Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), that members of the RTD board and the Transportation Commission be directly elected instead of appointed, that the RTD and the Transportation Commission be merged into one agency or that the Board of Supervisors assume control over both the RTD and the commission.

The commission’s position is expected to be relayed to the Assembly Transportation Committee, chaired by Katz, on Feb. 11.