This Lifeline Must Not Be Neglected

For the second year in a row the Southern California Rapid Transit District, which runs the county’s largest local bus system, faces a budget deficit. It wants the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which collects local transit taxes and is building new subway systems and starting up commuter rail service to several outlying suburbs, to make up the RTD’s $117-million shortfall.

LACTC officials are resisting because an outlay of $117 million would delay new rail projects. That is a valid concern. Freeways will never be unclogged if more drivers don’t give up their cars for mass transit; the best alternative is a new rail system, and the sooner the better.

However, the people using mass transit now must be assured of decent, reasonably priced service. Otherwise, some of them may start driving cars, compounding the congestion problem.

And what of the many poor people who don’t have cars and therefore must use public transit? If the RTD has a huge budget deficit, they would be faced with poorer service at higher prices.

The LACTC is offering the RTD a compromise $58 million, which suggests that the commission realizes the bus operators are not crying wolf. The LACTC should try to come up with as much of the $117 million as feasible. With Los Angeles struggling to pull itself together in so many ways after the riots, this is no time for the bus service that so many inner-city residents depend on to be cut back in favor of projects aimed at the suburbs. That simply sends the wrong signal, whatever the issues involved in this largely bureaucratic dispute.