Transit Upgrade for South L.A. Examined : Riot aftermath: Local officials are looking again at proposals for a transportation corridor in the Crenshaw district and accelerating some projects.

Local transportation officials told state legislators Friday that they are taking steps to incorporate Los Angeles County’s 30-year, $183-billion mass transit plan into post-riot rebuilding efforts, including a search for ways to create transportation alternatives in South Los Angeles.

Plans for transportation corridors in the Crenshaw district and along Exposition Boulevard are being re-examined, officials said, as well as such things as transportation enterprise zones, electric bus fleets and jitney services.

In the short term, the officials said, they are seeking to accelerate the financing and implementation of existing projects so job opportunities will open sooner for thousands of unemployed and underemployed residents of areas hard-hit in the civil disturbances.

In the long term, they said, they hope to lure commercial and residential development along mass transit corridors, and around and near rail stations.

“Transportation can solve many of our social ills” said Nikolas Patsaouras, a member of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission and the Southern California Rapid Transit District board.

The transit plan--described as the largest of its kind in the world--can help remake Los Angeles in the same way that railroads helped build the city a century ago, Patsaouras said.

He made his remarks at a public hearing of a special 18-member committee of the state Assembly headed by Assemblyman Curtis Tucker Jr. (D-Inglewood). The committee was formed after the riots to determine what, if any, role the Legislature can play in shaping reconstruction policy.

Under the LACTC’s transit plan, 400 miles of rail will be built and 1.4 million local jobs--44,000 annually--will be created over three decades. The first leg of the rail system--the Metro Blue Line linking Long Beach and Los Angeles--is in operation.

Questions to the transportation officials from Tucker and his staff indicated their concern that riot-stricken areas--particularly black neighborhoods in South Los Angeles--were not getting their share of attention in the transit plan.

Neil Peterson, LACTC’s executive director, told them that the agency drew up plans for a transportation corridor in the Crenshaw district, but had shelved it for lack of funding. Another corridor along Exposition is planned, he said, but no timetable for building it has been established.

The riots, he said, put those plans back on the table. But Peterson noted that the LACTC is only exploring those options.

In addition, he said, the agency is looking for ways to create tax incentives for businesses that participate in transportation projects and to expand job training and apprenticeship programs.

Tucker, during a break from the hearing, said the role of his committee is to “shed light” on projects such as the LACTC’s.

“We want to make people conscious of the roles (of these agencies) and their responsibilities in rebuilding L.A.,” Tucker said.

Tucker said it seemed that the LACTC had not seriously considered the impact of the transit plan on South Los Angeles until after the riots. Even now, he said, he is unsure of their commitment to the area.

“They all say the cute little buzzwords that are politically correct,” Tucker said. “But saying it here and doing it are two different things.”