Too Many Cooks

There has been plenty of talk lately about what is wrong with the Southern California Rapid Transit District and how to make it right. Most of the talk comes from local politicians who have no real authority over the transit agency, a creature of state government.

To hear most of RTD’s local critics tell it, simply firing RTD General Manager John Dyer would take care of everything that ails Los Angeles’ beleaguered mass-transit agency. But the many difficulties that Dyer and other RTD managers face reflect a much larger problem: The responsibility for mass transit in this sprawling region is too dispersed.

No single agency is in charge of mass transit in the greater Los Angeles area. RTD is the main local transportation agency, running the biggest bus fleet in the nation and overseeing the construction of the new Metro Rail subway from downtown to the San Fernando Valley. But local money to pay for Metro Rail comes from the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which administers the funds that come from a half-cent sales tax that Los Angeles County voters approved in 1981 for transit purposes. The commission is also building the new trolley line between Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Some local transit planning is done by the Southern California Assn. of Governments. Freeways are the responsibility of the California Department of Transportation. The City of Los Angeles has its own Transportation Department to oversee parking and traffic control in key areas like downtown, Century City and along Ventura Boulevard. And then there are the many municipal bus lines run by cities from Santa Monica to San Clemente to San Bernardino.

With so many cooks in the kitchen, Los Angeles probably should be grateful that it doesn’t have even more transit problems and scandals like those currently plaguing the RTD. But that is only because the region still has room to grow, and space lulls people into thinking that they can simply move away from problems like freeway congestion and surface-street gridlock.

But Los Angeles is running out of space, and faster than many people realize. Freeways, once wide open except in rush hours, are now clogged almost round the clock. Basic necessities like parking spaces are at a premium in many parts of town. Clearly the Los Angeles area must begin to plan now for the transportation future, and just as clearly one of the answers is some sort of consolidation of the many agencies that now share the responsibility for building and running a regional transportation system.

So it was refreshing to note, during last week’s meeting of the Assembly Transportation Committee in Los Angeles, that state officials are approaching the problems at RTD in a calm and farsighted manner.

We found it most encouraging that the chairman of the Transportation Committee, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), did not let the hearings become yet another round of RTD-bashing. Instead, he focused on what can be done to better coordinate the work of all the transit agencies in this region. He and state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-North Hollywood) are trying to design a new super-agency that would take over the work of both the RTD and the Transportation Commission. They would also have the new agency managed by a board of local elected officials instead of by the relatively powerless appointees who now serve on the LACTC and on the RTD’s board of directors.

Both are steps in the right direction, although we are not sure that they go far enough. Something must be done, for example, to better allocate local transit sales-tax money--currently shared on a per-capita basis by all cities in the county, large and small. While that may seem fair on the surface, it has been a windfall for many small cities that don’t need transit projects, while major cities like Los Angeles don’t get nearly enough money to meet their transportation needs.

At the same time, we were discouraged to hear Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley say that he does not think that the current transportation system needs to be altered all that much, and to say that he and other elected officials don’t have the time to focus on transit problems. They must make the time, because a modern and efficient transportation system may be the single most important thing that Los Angeles needs if it is to continue prospering into the 21st Century and not let its streets choke on their own success--as many other big cities have done. Being the principal American city on the Pacific Rim will mean little if people who live and work around Los Angeles, or visit here, can barely move from place to place.

Many plans and ideas will be discussed and discarded before something better than the current transit system in Los Angeles, including the RTD, is created. Fow now we’re glad that the process has begun, and we’re reassured that it is being handled in the right place, the Legislature, by people using the right frame of reference, the future.