Subway Debut: Modest--Yet a Breakthrough : Eventually, Red Line will be a key in area’s transit network

Strangled by freeway gridlock, coughing--if not choking--from auto fumes that sometimes hang over the city like some warning from the heavens, Los Angeles seeks redemption in mass transit. Just over two years ago the sleek Blue Line to Long Beach opened and, except for the few almost predictable mishaps, seems to be chugging along just fine. A few months ago the curtain came up on Metrolink--commuter trains linking the city to the Inland Empire in the east and Ventura County in the west. Now, on Saturday, comes the first leg of the Red Line subway--complete with official festivities only slightly less bombastic than those for Sunday’s Super Bowl in Pasadena.

That sense of pomp and circumstance is perhaps as it should be. Selling the idea of a subway to Los Angeles was a bit like the proverbial ice box in Alaska--was this really the place for it?

As the world’s leading freeway city, L.A. had its cars, thank you, and needed nothing else. But that was then--and this is now. Now is the age of overcrowding, ever more pressing environmental standards and a growing consensus that some of the best chances for a livable Los Angeles might lie in projects that not only pollute less but also bring different kinds of people together.

What opens on Saturday is, to be sure, a modest step. This first leg of the subway line runs a mere 4.4 miles and connects but five stations. Yet a mass transit breakthrough it is, because if all goes well it will become part of a substantial 22.7-mile network--and a central element of a complex consisting of hundreds of miles of subways, commuter rail, trolleys, buses and other new or improved transit services.

The birth of the Red Line also coincides with a significant political development: the merger of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission and the Rapid Transit District of Southern California. They will be combined in a new Metropolitan Transportation Authority that officially comes into existence Monday--a huge new authority, created by the Legislature to administer the area’s 30-year, $183-billion mass transit program--the largest public works program in the nation.

Thus the 13 MTA board members, along with whoever is chosen to become the MTA’s executive director, will be among the most influential members of our community. They will help carve up a pie that probably represents more disposable revenue (mainly from dedicated transit bonds) than is available to the L.A. mayor.

Six finalists have been chosen for the new MTA position by a special panel. Theoretically, the new MTA board could make its selection as soon as next week. But that would be a mistake. Four of the board’s current members were selected by the current, lame-duck mayor; they represent the largest single block on the board. No doubt the mayor’s successor--who likely won’t be elected until a runoff election in June--will want his or her own four representatives on the powerful new board. Rather than saddle the new mayor with an MTA executive selected by a board dominated by the old mayor, the MTA should delay its decision until after the election. Meantime, it can designate an acting director until the new mayor is installed.