RTD Rejects New Metro Rail Agency : Transit: The action dashed hopes of ending a feud with the Transportation Commission, which lashed back quickly.

Southern California Rapid Transit District directors rejected a plan Thursday to create a new, independent agency to finish the $3.4-billion Metro Rail project, dashing hopes for an end to the bitter feud between the county’s two biggest transit authorities.

Instead of accepting the plan negotiated largely by Mayor Tom Bradley, the RTD board voted 6 to 5 to form a committee to study other ways of ending its dispute with the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

The six-member committee would have three appointees from each agency, if the commission agrees to the RTD’s new proposal.

Board President Gordana Swanson said the RTD directors recognized that some form of independent agency was needed to take over rail construction, but she contended that the proposed compromise plan would have given the commission too much authority.

The two agencies, each empowered to design and build rail projects, have been quarreling over allegations of misspent money and the question of which has the most power over the $3.4-billion Metro Rail project.

By delaying a decision on who is to control the rail project, the majority of the RTD directors ignored warnings from the commission, which controls the rail project’s purse strings. The commission had said that it would cut funds if the RTD did not agree to the compromise put forward by RTD Director Nick Patsaouras and supported by Bradley.

Reacting swiftly and angrily to the RTD’s refusal to approve the compromise, the commission’s transit committee voted unanimously Thursday evening to recommend cancellation of its $19.7-million contract with the RTD for the design and engineering of the $1.4-billion second phase of Metro Rail. The second phase will extend the line six miles from downtown Los Angeles to Hollywood.

“We are done fooling around,” said commission Chairman Christine Reed, who is recommending that the commission go ahead with plans to take over the project by creating an independent agency.

“The commission has taken all of the necessary steps, legal and procedural, to become the prime mover on the second phase and beyond,” Reed said.

The commission is expected to take action at its Wednesday meeting.

The two agencies have been wrangling over cost overruns on the first phase of the project ever since a commission audit reported that the RTD was $135 million over budget and two years behind schedule. The commission questioned the district’s ability to build the next segments of the line, but the RTD board contended that the commission had no authority to take over the project.

Against this backdrop, the two powerful transit agencies are operating without a clear understanding of the role each should play in the development of a mass transit rail system for the county. Each side claims that the federal government views it as the primary builder of the rail system.

The Transportation Commission said it has a letter from the Department of Transportation’s Urban Mass Transit Administration stating that “The LACTC is the legal successor to the SCRTD . . . (and) may enter into a full funding agreement with UMTA for construction of MOS--2 (Phase 2) of the rail project.”

Swanson, just returned from Washington, said federal officials told her that “construction of Metro Rail is viewed as RTD’s responsibility.”

However, Brian Clymer, UMTA’s acting head, refused to be dragged into the controversy, saying this is a dispute that must be settled by local officials. However, Clymer did say that an agreement signed by both county agencies a year ago clearly put the commission in charge of setting Metro Rail project policies, schedules and budgets.

“The two parties must find a way to work together,” Clymer said through his spokesman.

On whether the commission could legally cancel the $19.7-million design and engineering contract, Clymer’s spokesman said, “That question is a serious one, and we’ll have to review it carefully.”

The RTD started the Metro Rail project in the mid-1970s, put together the first federal funding package and is building the $1.3-billion first phase. At the time, it was presumed that the RTD would build the whole 17-mile, $3.4-billion line from downtown to the San Fernando Valley.

The commission, which was formed by the Legislature in 1976, was a late-comer to the Metro Rail project. Its primary goal was to draft a countywide transportation plan and to control Metro Rail’s purse strings.

Because the first phase of the project was already under way, the commission agreed to let the RTD design and build the second phase as well, but then backed away when audits revealed that the first phase of the project was two years behind schedule and $135 million over budget.

That triggered the current controversy and the commission’s effort to wrest control of Metro Rail from the RTD. The commission created a subsidiary Rail Construction Corp. to take over the second phase, offering the RTD three of the six seats on the new corporation’s board of directors.

The RTD could then have continued to design and build the project, but under control of the new agency.

When the RTD refused to act on any of the commission’s cost-cutting suggestions or to name three people to sit on the new agency’s board of directors, the commission reacted swiftly to cut the district out of the project altogether.

Patsaouras, working with Bradley and others, put together a compromise proposal that would have created a seven-member board to govern the separate agency and give it more independence. The seventh member of the board would have been appointed by Bradley.

That proposal never even made it to a vote Thursday. Instead, RTD board member Kenneth Thomas proposed that the directors adopt a resolution saying they favored another type of independent body and that each agency should appoint three members to the committee to study the matter.