Use of Transit Funds Was Bad Public Policy

It has been said that compromise makes a good umbrella but a poor roof. That was evident again last Monday in the deal worked out between directors of the Orange County Transit District and the Orange County Transportation Commission.

Under the settlement, the Transportation Commission, which supervises all transportation projects in the county, agreed to withdraw two bills pending in the Legislature that would have taken big chunks out of a $200-million Transit District reserve fund. In return, the Transit District agreed to give up some of the interest it receives on that reserve fund.

There’s no question that the compromise was better than losing a big chunk of reserve fund itself. The $200 million that the Transit District has built up over the years is earmarked for its $330-million transit-way program that will put nearly 20 miles of separated freeway lanes with their own on- and off-ramps along the San Diego and Santa Ana freeways for use by buses, van-pools and car-pools.

But that doesn’t change the fact that millions of dollars in interest money will be lost from the project designed to ease freeway congestion. That money now will be going to pay for sound walls and so-called “super streets” to speed traffic on some of the county’s major thoroughfares.

It is poor public policy to sacrifice long-term solutions that could make a significant difference to many motorists and divert that money to resolve short-term problems, such as sound walls that, as one transit district director noted, “benefit relatively few citizens.”

There is no doubt that diversion of the transit-way funds is politically popular and gives the impression that politicians, who either can’t or refuse to see beyond their terms of office, are really doing something about traffic problems. In the big picture, they’re not. One transportation official was quoted as saying that the public doesn’t care about long-term needs and what traffic conditions might be in the county a generation or two down the road. Using that philosophy, no one would ever plant a tree.

Solving all of Orange County’s growing traffic problems requires much more money than is available. That shortage of funds is the very reason why tough priorities are needed, priorities that aren’t compromised away. About three years ago the Transportation Commission made a similar raid on the transit-way reserve account, siphoning off millions of dollars in interest. They did it again Monday, sacrificing long-term solutions for instant cash.

There’s no guarantee that more raids, and compromises, won’t be made as traffic funds remain critically scarce--and the transit district’s reserves become even more tempting to shortsighted transportation officials less interested in maintaining the integrity of well-planned programs than in grabbing off quick bucks wherever they can.