Official Views Differ on Plan to Merge Transportation Agencies

Orange County leaders soon may be considering a plan to create a single, powerful agency that would oversee one of the county’s most pervasive problems: transportation.

The plan would merge five existing agencies, their budgets--which total nearly $100 million a year--and their control over the county’s freeways, buses and future toll roads. Advocates say such a merger would streamline a fat and little-understood bureaucracy. But others say many questions must be answered first, such as who would hold the power in such a superagency.

Next month, the Orange County Transportation Commission will vote on whether to pursue the idea, which would merge it with the Orange County Transit District, the Consolidated Transportation Service Agency and the two transportation corridor agencies.

Commissioners in Support

The idea has been enthusiastically embraced by several Transportation Commission members. But they face resistance from another commission member and from the head of the Orange County Transit District, both of whom vigorously question the benefits of any merger.

Commissioners Dana Reed, an attorney, and Thomas F. Riley and Roger R. Stanton, both county supervisors, say a merger would benefit the commuter. Consolidation, they say, would streamline the county’s transportation bureaucracy, expedite traffic solutions and make transportation officials more accountable to the public. In addition, a single super-agency would give the county a more powerful voice on transportation matters in Sacramento and Washington, advocates say.

But Tustin City Councilman Richard B. Edgar, who also sits on the seven-member Transportation Commission, and OCTD General Manager Jim Reichert argue that the real reason for the county’s traffic woes isn’t a fat bureaucracy but a lack of money. And any accountability problem, they argue, simply calls for educating the public about which agency does what.

“I’m not protecting any empire,” Reichert said. “I just think that all of a sudden, consolidation is (seen as) the panacea that is going to solve everything.”

Currently, responsibility for various transportation programs in the county is diffused.

The Transportation Commission makes policy and coordinates responsibilities, particularly for main intracity streets and freeways. It also allocates some money to the OCTD, which runs the county’s bus system and car-pool network.

Toll Roads Being Planned

Meanwhile, the transportation corridor agencies--the San Joaquin Hills agency and the Eastern/Foothills agency--are planning and building three toll roads in the county. And the Consolidated Transportation Service Agency, run by a board of directors appointed by the Transportation Commission, provides transportation for the elderly and handicapped.

Movement toward a merger--which in one form or another is supported by the five county supervisors--was helped along by a commission-sponsored survey of 50 community leaders earlier this year. It found a widespread perception that no one is in charge of transportation management in Orange County.

“There was a glaring lack of knowing who to blame and who to give credit to,” said Stan Oftelie, the commission’s executive director. Oftelie said that next month his staff will present the commissioners with a variety of options, perhaps including a partial merger.

With consolidation still only in the exploratory stage, and with no one yet sure how or to what extent it would occur, the size and authority of any new superagency is unclear. Nor is it known how many jobs (OCTD employs 1,456 people) would be lost through a merger.

But advocates of the plan say the benefits are obvious.

“The prize there for the commuter,” Riley said of consolidation, “is that we’ll reduce the administrative effort and . . . solve transportation problems in the most expeditious manner.”

Yet a merger would have to clear several hurdles. Because both the OCTD and the OCTC were created by legislation, they can only be merged by legislation. And that, almost everyone agrees, would require the consent of the five agencies involved and of the county’s 27 city councils.

Edgar sent letters last week to every city council member in the county, urging each to take a hard look at consolidation. While asking council members “to join in a rigorous discussion of the pros and cons of consolidation,” Edgar wrote that he strongly believes that “the authority, responsibility, will to cooperate and coordinate exists at the present time.”

Edgar said later: “I’m willing to look at the facts. No one can say Dick Edgar’s mind is made up.”

In contacting the county’s city officials, Edgar is reaching out to a group that could be the toughest to sell on consolidation. As a Transportation Commission staff report warned last week, “Cities can be expected to be wary of consolidation if it is perceived to be a move by the county to gain a say in local land-use decisions.”

Santa Ana Mayor Dan Young, chairman of the League of Orange County Cities’ transportation committee, agrees that the land-use control issue is a concern to cities. But he also said “the jury is out” on most questions raised by the proposal to merge.

“We’re not dismissing the idea out of hand at all,” Young said, “and in fact are intrigued by it.”

The Transportation Commission has sent a report on the consolidation proposal, listing its pros and cons, to all city council members in the county. “We’ll be studying (the issue and the report) over the next 60 days or so,” Young said.

Whether cities will support consolidation will probably depend heavily on the makeup of the superagency’s board of directors and whether the cities’ collective voice is outweighed by that of the county. Currently, the cities and the county each have three representatives on the Transportation Commission (there is one at-large member), allowing the voices roughly equal weight.

While the composition of the proposed superagency’s board of directors is far from certain, one agency head, who asked not to be identified, said the most likely configuration would be five city members, five county members and one at-large member.

In any event, almost everyone agrees that the representation issue is likely to be the most hard fought and controversial of those surrounding consolidation. “That,” said Riley, “is the $64,000 question.”

TRANSIT MERGER CANDIDATES

The following are the five transportation agencies in the countythat could be merged to create a transit super-agency:

Orange County Transportation Commission, with a $6.5-million budget, coordinates work on freeways and main intercity streets. The commission also parcels out money to the Orange County Transit District and appoints the board of directors for the Consolidated Transportation Service Agency. Executive director: Stan Oftelie.

Orange County Transit District, with an $87-million operating budget this year and 1,456 employees, runs the county’s bus system, the dial-a-ride bus service, car-pooling programs for commuters and oversees bus and car-pool lanes on freeways. General manager: Jim Reichert.

Consolidated Transportation Service Agency, which has a $5-million budget, provides transportation service to the elderly and handicapped. Acting executive director: Greg Winterbottom.

The San Joaquin Hills Transportation Corridor Agency and the Foothills-Eastern Transportation Corridor Agency, which are financing and coordinating work on three planned toll roads. The agencies share nine staff members and a $265,000 budget, but have different boards of directors. Executive director: John Meyer.