L.A. Transit Measure Runs Into a Roadblock

Small cities, big transit agencies and organized labor teamed up with a skeptical state Senate committee chairman on Tuesday to block action on legislation to reorganize Los Angeles County’s public transit system.

It was a setback for the measure by Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) to shake up through legislation the Southern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, the two agencies with the major responsibility for public transit in the county.

The RTD operates most of the buses and is building and will operate the Metro Rail subway, now under construction in downtown Los Angeles. The commission sets transit policy, supervises countywide spending and is building a light-rail line from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles, which the RTD will operate.

After listening to all the criticism at a hearing on the Robbins bill, Sen. Wadie Deddeh (D-Chula Vista), chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, said there would not be a vote on the measure for at least two weeks, adding, “and I don’t think two weeks are enough to satisfy the questions that have been raised.”

Chairman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda) of the Assembly Transportation Committee, who is preparing his own bill, said, “I’m not surprised. It shows there is a lot of work that must be done.”

In Los Angeles, Mayor Tom Bradley’s deputy mayor, Tom Houston, expressed pleasure. Bradley opposes the Robbins bill.

“The whole question of reorganization is up in the air,” Houston said in a telephone interview.

Houston strongly attacked demands for reorganization, saying “the whole thing is being pushed by press stories of RTD difficulties. . . . Every time there is an article about the RTD, I think someone throws in another reorganization plan, and I think what we need is a longer-range approach.”

Robbins’ bill, proposed after months of controversy and news coverage that raised questions about the RTD’s ability to manage its bus system and build and operate a rail system, would wipe out both the RTD and the county Transportation Commission.

In their place would be a metropolitan transportation authority, governed by a seven-member board. Two board members would be Los Angeles County supervisors. One would be either the mayor of Los Angeles or an elected city official designated by the mayor. Rounding out the board would be two members of smaller city councils, a legislator and a gubernatorial appointee.

Deddeh questioned the wisdom of placing a legislator on the board. Because the Legislature would create the new agency, Deddeh said, it would be “intimidating” for a member of the Legislature to then sit on the board and be able to complain to colleagues in Sacramento when there were disagreements.

Deddeh also suggested that instead of the massive reorganization proposed by Robbins, the RTD and the county Transportation Commission be allowed to remain intact, with a separate agency being created for the complex job of rail construction for the Metro Rail subway, the Long Beach light-rail line and subsequent projects.

Such a plan has been put forth by the county Transportation Commission and backed by Bradley. Houston said the mayor told him he had not spoken to Deddeh about the plan.

Legislative sources said, however, that the Transportation Commission had lobbied the committee, and the commission was represented at the meeting by one of its members, Christine Reed of Santa Monica.

The RTD, represented at the hearing by board Vice President Carmen Estrada, a Bradley appointee, also opposed the Robbins bill.

Reed, a Santa Monica city council member, criticized the Robbins reorganization proposal on an additional ground: She said wiping out the Transportation Commission might threaten appropriations--now dispensed by the commission--to the 13 small municipal bus lines in the county. Santa Monica operates such a line.

The same fear was expressed by officials of Torrance and Gardena.

Concern for the small cities drew a sympathetic response from lawmakers representing suburban communities.

More trouble for the Robbins plan came from organized labor as Earl Clark, head of the bus drivers’ union, visited legislative offices to argue for provisions that would protect union contracts in a reorganization. That point is not specifically addressed in the Robbins proposal.