Response to Court Defeat Shows MTA’s Hypocrisy

There doesn’t seem to be any limit to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s hypocrisy and backwardness.

At least, that’s how I felt after reading about the MTA’s response to its embarrassing defeat in federal court Thursday.

It couldn’t have ended much worse for the agency. Federal Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. temporarily blocked a 25-cent bus fare increase and the abolition of passes. He ordered a hearing Sept. 12 on whether the higher fares would discriminate against the poor, a substantial number of whom are African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans.

After this setback, I was astounded at the statement made by one of the MTA board’s most powerful members, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre. He said he was “ecstatic” about the court decision. “I didn’t believe we had to impose a fare increase and do away with passes because of the disproportionate impact it had on transit-dependent people in the inner city,” he said.

What was odd is that it was Alatorre who muscled through a $123-million appropriation earlier in the year for his pet project, a proposed Blue Line rail extension from Downtown Los Angeles through his district to Pasadena. Of this, $50 million came from discretionary funds. The bus rider groups fighting the fare increase contended in court that this money could have been put into the bus system, eliminating the need for higher fares.

What’s especially maddening is that nobody has any idea where the rest of the $841 million for the Blue Line extension will come from in this era of impoverished federal, state and local government treasuries. That’s why the MTA’s chief executive officer, Franklin E. White, had opposed Alatorre’s original plan to expand the Blue Line. But White was no match for the MTA board’s pork barrel politics.

The MTA’s bureaucratic backwardness compounded the problem. The agency’s attorney, Richard Katzman, insisted that the MTA couldn’t shift money from rail to bus--an issue that will be debated in the upcoming federal court hearing. And he said the agency had done everything possible to cut costs.

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By chance, just after I’d read Katzman’s comments, the mail brought me an article by Geoffrey S. Yarema, an attorney with the Los Angeles firm of Nossaman, Guthner, Knox & Elliott. Yarema is an expert in government finance who has been vainly trying to interest the MTA in a plan that could earn the agency up to $40 million a year, enough to eliminate the need for the fare increase.

The centerpiece of Yarema’s plan is the new elevated portion of the Harbor Freeway running 13 miles south from around the USC area.

The elevated roadway is for high-occupancy vehicles, anything from car pools to buses. The idea is for them to speed along, above the usual Harbor Freeway traffic jams. Those wedded to the traditional Southern California transportation mode of one person, one car, would be banished to the slow ground-level lanes.

Yarema proposed allowing single-occupant vehicles on the new road too--but charging a toll. This would permit a person in a hurry to speed along above the Harbor Freeway traffic.

Yarema suggested a rush-hour toll of at least $1.50, with the proceeds used by the MTA for improving bus service and keeping fares down.

When I talked to him Friday, he said his idea was not revolutionary,

He has helped put together a number of similar toll road projects around the country, most notably Orange County’s San Joaquin Hills, Eastern and Foothill toll roads.

State and federal approval would be needed, but there would be no construction cost to speak of, he said, because “the four-lane facility under construction is fully funded and would not require significant changes to be adopted for use” as a toll road.

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This isn’t the first time the MTA has heard this idea. It’s called “congestion pricing,” and it is a concept gaining favor among transportation experts ranging from the conservative to the liberal. In the simplest terms, it means that one person driving in one car would pay the costs of road wear and tear, air pollution and highway congestion.

It’s one of several practical ideas floating around that haven’t stirred much interest at the MTA. Vans, operating like the Super Shuttle, to bring commuters from their homes to main line transit routes is one. Another involves small transit vehicles operating in neighborhoods--jitneys.

Such concepts could bring in more revenue and improve transportation in both poor and more affluent neighborhoods.

Instead, we have gridlock, not only on the streets but in the minds of the politicians and bureaucrats who run the MTA.