Discord Plagues Marriage of 2 Transit Agencies

Unveiled 16 months ago, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority was touted as a leaner, smarter bureaucracy--one that would spend tax dollars more wisely and improve the accountability of politicians crafting a costly 21st-Century transit system.

It would bring spiffy new rail service to neighborhoods throughout the Los Angeles Basin. It would build trolley lines and subways. It would ease traffic gridlock and make the air cleaner.

Instead, this mega-transit agency has become mired in disputes and financial crisis. A strike, the first in 12 years, began today as mechanics failed to reach a contract agreement, and drivers’ and clerks’ unions agreed to honor their picket lines. A recent fare increase--the first in six years--caused a furor among the county’s transit users. Construction of the city’s subway--meant to be the crown jewel in a brand-new system--has been riddled with problems. And political turf wars, and budgetary constraints, have impeded the development of the ambitious $183-billion, 30-year transportation plan.

Once dubbed the biggest checkbook in town, the MTA discovered that the recession triggered a sharp decline in sales tax revenue. Officials suddenly faced a projected $20-billion shortfall, meaning that the blueprint of Los Angeles’ transit future would have to be honed to more realistic proportions.

Faced with these issues, MTA officials say they have been slow in fully merging the county’s two former rival transit agencies, the Southern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

The MTA, created by state legislation, was designed to eliminate duplication of services and the bickering between agencies. The merger, officials say, has resulted in a savings of tens of millions of dollars in the annual $2.9-billion budget and the elimination of 515 positions.

But the bitter rivalry still exists, fueled in part, officials say, by the longstanding debate over how to best serve the region’s transportation needs: by rail or by bus, and what balance to strike between the two modes.

Bus proponents, including many former officials of the RTD bus agency, say the MTA must tend the needs of its 1.2 million bus passengers. Constructing the region’s rail network has meant stripping funds from the bus system, they say, hurting the people who can least afford it. An MTA study indicates that 62% of bus riders come from households with incomes of $15,000 or less--about a quarter as much as the average passenger on the Metrolink commuter trains.

Champions of rail, which include many former county Transportation Commission officials, contend that a network of trains, trolleys and subways is imperative for a modern transit system. They point out that county voters have passed sales tax increases to fund commuter rail construction.

The two organizations also differed in style. The former RTD was a no-frills operation housed on Skid Row. The now-defunct Transportation Commission, lodged in a sleek financial district high-rise, used to serve gourmet coffee and doughnuts to its staff. Employees of the MTA will remain in these separate offices until a new $145-million headquarters is complete in the fall of 1995.

“It’s taking a lot longer than I thought it would to consolidate the two agencies to get over rivalries, pettiness and backbiting,” said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), architect of the merger legislation. “On top of that, we have a board that is much more interested in short-term political objectives than a long-term comprehensive transportation strategy. . . . Everyone has their little project for their own back yard or the special interest they are promoting.”

The MTA, the nation’s second-largest public transit system, is governed by 13 board members, whose decisions influence the lives of millions of Los Angeles County residents.

They decide where to build rail lines, and where and when buses run. They award hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts--1 cent from every dollar of sales in the county flows through the agency. And this is not lost on the 1,068 lobbyists who flock to meetings--or roughly the same number as are registered at the state Capitol.

The board’s monthly sessions sometimes take on the anything-goes atmosphere of a political carnival, with lobbyists and gadflies trumpeting their causes.

“This agency is supposed to be a regional transportation agency,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky. “It runs more like a local city council with parochial city concerns. Decisions are made like justice was enforced in the wild, wild West--in a shoot-from-the-hip fashion.”

Said County Supervisor Ed Edelman, MTA chairman: “It’s a bureaucratic nightmare. It’s a very difficult animal to try to control and get moving in the right direction.”

Political rivalries flourish and grudges linger. Some MTA board members, such as County Supervisor Gloria Molina and Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, rarely speak to each other. The representatives of the outlying cities are always wary about losing money to the more politically powerful city of Los Angeles, whose mayor, Richard Riordan, sits on the MTA board and controls three other seats.

“People seem to be looking after their own turf rather than the region,” said a community activist. “The mission of the agency has gotten a little bit lost.”

The result, critics say, is that there has been no change in controversial transit policies that will give Los Angeles, for example, an $825-million Green Line trolley that stops 1 1/2 miles short of the city’s airport. And the San Fernando Valley is no closer to getting a rail line than it was several years ago under the RTD and Transportation Commission, although officials say that is because Valley residents cannot agree on the route and technology.

“We were not doing transportation planning effectively, efficiently and expeditiously, and we’re not doing it now,” said Ben Reznik, past board chairman of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.

The MTA board also has defied the recommendations of its own chief executive officer, Franklin White. Last Wednesday, for example, nine of the MTA’s 13 board members rejected White’s pleas and voted to spend $123 million--twice what White proposed--on the planned Pasadena rail line.

Before the vote, White pointed out that the agency had no funds for the project, which is expected to cost $850 million.

“This organization is broke,” he said. “Next year you will not have the money to continue the construction.

“We ought to get back to the sensible policy of spending, which is: Don’t spend money you don’t have.”

In describing the vote on the Pasadena line, MTA board member James Cragin, a Gardena city councilman who opposed the expenditure, said: “It reminded me of a bunch of hogs running to the trough that doesn’t have too many husks left. . . . Special interests have taken over the operation of the MTA.”

White’s position on the Pasadena line and other projects has often placed him at odds with one of the MTA’s most powerful board members--Alatorre, who recently stepped down as the agency’s chairman.

Alatorre has repeatedly voiced frustration at White’s insistence on re-evaluating the merits of projects that were promised--but not funded--by the now-defunct county Transportation Commission.

“He always has enjoyed trying to revisit things instead of carrying out the mandate of the board,” Alatorre said in an interview.

White countered that he would be derelict if he did not review the worthiness of every project. “The 30-year plan that the (Transportation Commission) developed was based on a set of financial assumptions which bear no resemblance to the fiscal realities in 1994,” he said.

White would like to withhold major funding for proposals such as the Pasadena line until his staff completes a detailed assessment this fall of the former commission’s 30-year plan.

He also has battled Alatorre and Metro Rail contractors over how best to manage the quality and costs of rail construction, which have been under investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Among the projects being examined is the Red Line subway, which was built before the creation of the MTA. The Times found that parts of the Downtown subway were built with concrete walls thinner than specified and that the tunnels now have water and gas leaking into them.

White has confronted contractors and the MTA’s consultants over the issue of construction quality. Following The Times’ accounts last year, he established a panel of outside specialists, who recommended extensive repairs to the tunnels.

Despite these problems, Alatorre has backed a proposal to increase the independence of the MTA’s rail staff and an advisory board of directors, called the Rail Construction Corp.

White responded in May by calling for dissolving the RCC board and argued that increasing the RCC’s powers would further fragment the MTA.

White’s supporters say they want him to do more to rein in quality problems and costs of construction, construction management and design-engineering.

“I don’t think we’ve addressed those (types of) problems yet,” said Marvin L. Holen, an MTA appointee. “The lowering of expectations, with respect to the budget, has consumed management’s time and energies.”

Although the promise of the MTA was more thoughtful management and improved service, some say benefits have yet to trickle down to the people who form the backbone of the agency’s customer base: 1.2 million daily bus riders, who this month were hit with the first fare increase in six years. Beginning Sept. 1, the cost of a basic fare will climb 23%--from $1.10 to $1.35--and regular monthly passes, essential to many indigent passengers, will no longer be sold.

Some experts say the 16-month-old merger has actually worked against the bus system.

“The bus constituency lost its voice in this merger,” said James Moore, associate professor of urban planning and co-director of USC’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technology.

As a result, the MTA has failed to stem the steady decline in bus service over the last decade. Ridership has dropped 25% since 1985--when fares were 50 cents. A hundred fewer buses travel the streets today, and many popular lines through the central city remain packed with elbow-to-elbow crowds.

“Los Angeles is still leading the nation in passenger load and the number of (standing passengers),” Moore said. “We’re moving a lot of people, but we’ve got ‘em packed in like sardines.”

White denied that bus service is a lower priority. “Remember, the largest single component of our employees are those who come from the prior RTD,” he said.

“What’s the evidence that (the bus system is) taking the back seat? Most people offer the evidence that we’ve raised the fares,” White said. “The fact of the matter is, there’s never any free lunch.”

He also said the new bus fares will still be comparable with metropolitan transit systems nationwide.

Safety remains a key concern for riders. Many are irked that the MTA spends 20 times more for security on rail lines than on buses, even though bus passengers outnumber rail passengers 15 to 1.

Critics predict that worsening conditions aboard buses, combined with fare increases and service reductions, will further erode ridership. The MTA itself expects the latest round of fare increases to chase away another 80,000 bus customers a day.

“There’s a vicious cycle,” said Chris Niles of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, a government watchdog group.

Some analysts also contend that the merger, by centralizing operations, has rendered the bus system unresponsive to rider demands, preventing innovations. The last overhaul of bus routes was a decade ago. Small changes to scheduling can take more than a year to implement.

“Many of the routes do not serve today’s needs,” said Jonathan Richmond, who teaches transportation planning at UCLA. “You need to reorient many of the lines to serve local communities better. . . . Buses go along the main streets like Vermont, but we need buses to go into the communities and pick people up there.”

Experts say it is particularly difficult for cities with new rail lines to continue to meet the needs of bus passengers.

A federal study in 1989 found that of the eight cities that got new rail lines within the past 20 years, none could claim unqualified success. Five cities reported gains in transit use, but only at significantly greater costs per passenger. Overall ridership fell in three cities that scaled back bus service to help pay for the new rail projects.

“Not to say that rail never works,” said Martin Wachs, an urban planning professor at UCLA. “In Hong Kong it may be the right choice. In Sao Paulo, it may be the right choice. Even in New York, some limited expansions of the rail systems may be better than the buses.

“But in Los Angeles, in more corridors than not, various forms of bus transportation prove to be more cost-effective than rail. We have for political reasons opted for rail instead of bus.”

The Blue Line trolley, traveling between Long Beach and Los Angeles, currently is the workhorse of the MTA’s rail program with 37,800 passengers a day. But even it commands more than 2 1/2 times the public subsidy per trip than the average bus ride ($3.15 versus $1.16). And two-thirds of Blue Line riders are “bus refugees,” not new transit users who have been pulled out of their cars.

White, however, said the agency would be shortsighted if it did not consider Los Angeles’ needs for the future.

“We get asked to do two things in this organization. One is to provide transportation to today’s riders, hopefully with decent, clean, safe service,” White said. “But we also have to plan for the L.A. of tomorrow.”

* TRANSIT STRIKE: L.A. County’s public transit system ground to a halt today as contract talks ended. B1

Taking a Ride

Here is a look at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, formed April 1, 1993, by the merging of Los Angeles’ two transportation agencies: the Southern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

THE PLAYERS: The MTA is governed by a 13-member board, which includes five Los Angeles County supervisors, Mayor Richard Riordan and three other L.A. city appointees and four representatives from outlying cities. The agency is headed by Franklin White, the chief executive officer, selected by the board.

THE IMPACT: With a $2.9 billion budget, the agency operates the nation’s second largest bus system, builds rail projects and chooses train and bus routes. The MTA also funds car-pool lanes, Metrolink commuter trains, dial-a-ride services and allocates money to communities for local shuttles.

RIDERSHIP: The MTA oversees the buses, trains and trolleys that serve more than 1 million passengers every day. In recent years, the agency has increased its focus on rail, opening the Blue Line trolley, running between Long Beach and downtown Los Angeles, and the Red Line subway.

Average Daily Ridership

BUSES

YEAR 1984-85: 1.60 million 1985-86: 1.43 million 1986-87: 1.39 million 1987-88: 1.34 million 1988-89: 1.31 million 1989-90: 1.27 million 1990-91: 1.28 million 1991-92: 1.27 million 1992-93: 1.17 million 1993-94: 1.18 million ***

BLUE LINE TROLLEY

A 22-mile trolley line that stops at 22 stations between Long Beach and Downtown Los Angeles. 1990-91*: 21,032 1991-92: 34,242 1992-93: 36,553 1993-94: 36,600 ***

RED LINE SUBWAY

The city’s first modern subway will ultimately run 22 miles from downtown to North Hollywood. A 4.4-mile stretch, which includes five stations, is open from Union Station to MacArthur Park. 1992-93*: 12,494 1993-94: 15,750 *-Year that the system opened.

Source: Metropolitan Transportation Authority