CITY SMART / How to thrive in the urban environment of Southern California : Welcome to Alice in Transitland (the MTA, That Is)

Why is the MTA spending more to collect fares than it takes in for the Los Angeles subway?

Why are transit officials sending new, low-polluting buses to Atlanta while leaving paying customers in smoggy L.A. to ride in older, diesel vehicles?

Why can riders drink coffee aboard Amtrak and Metrolink trains but are fined $250 for taking java aboard Blue and Green line trains and the Red Line subway?

Welcome to Alice in Transitland. Part II.

This is a follow-up to last year’s questions about Southern California’s often-perplexing transportation system, such as: Why don’t trains go the Hollywood Bowl, Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles International Airport or other places where you want to go?

Answer: Transit planners are building the system for commuters, not sightseers, culture aficionados or sports fans.

Here, then, is another round:

Q: Why is the MTA talking about off-track betting?

A: Under a little-known law, cities are required to offset increased traffic congestion caused by construction.

Arcadia and Inglewood contend that off-track betting at Santa Anita Park and Hollywood Park reduced travel by allowing track fans to place bets closer to home.

MTA staff contends that although off-track betting may reduce attendance where the horses are running, it is likely to increase traffic at other racetracks.

“We think it leads to more travel” because wagering is now available at more locations, said Jody E. Feerst, acting manager of the MTA’s congestion management program.

Q: Why is the MTA sending new, low-polluting buses to Atlanta while leaving Los Angeles residents to ride in older, diesel vehicles?

A: “It’s all part of being a good neighbor,” said MTA spokeswoman Andrea Greene.

Plans call for the MTA to send 60 new compressed natural gas buses to Atlanta for use in the 1996 Summer Olympics. When the games end, the buses will be driven to Los Angeles and put into service.

Q: Why is the MTA spending more to collect fares than it takes in on the L.A. subway?

A: What do you expect for a subway that costs a quarter and goes only a few miles?

It costs the agency more to service the fare machines and pay the salaries of police who check tickets than the $700,000 a year it collects from fares, said Tom Rubin, who was controller-treasurer for the now-defunct Southern California Rapid Transit District.

“If you’re losing money on fare collection, why don’t you run it for free?” Rubin asked rhetorically. “Because the MTA would wind up with the world’s largest mobile homeless shelter.”

Transit officials believe that fare revenues--and ridership--will increase after an extension of the subway to Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue opens early next year. The fare also is due to go up then to $1.35.

Q: Why do subway trains leave late-arriving passengers standing at the station?

A: Drivers have to keep to a schedule, said Ed Vandeventer, MTA rail general manager.

Transit officials say the driver has approximately 12 seconds to get passengers on and off if the trains are to keep to their schedule of arriving at stations every five minutes during rush hour and 10 minutes during other times.

So if you arrive at the door just as it closes, sorry, you’re out of luck.

Q: Is the newly opened Green Line a train to nowhere?

A: The Green Line does not go directly to Los Angeles International Airport, or to the beach, or to a Metrolink station in Norwalk / Santa Fe Springs, or to the massive employment center in El Segundo it was designed to serve.

But it does go somewhere--to a miniature golf course and water park in Redondo Beach. The kiddie parks, only yards away from a train station, report increased attendance since the opening of the line.

A manager of the water park, however, maintains that the Green Line also has brought increased vandalism.

Q: Why can riders drink coffee aboard Amtrak and Metrolink trains but can be fined $250 for drinking on Blue and Green line trains and the Red Line subway?

A: Metrolink trains are run by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, but the Blue, Green and Red lines are operated by the MTA.

“Our riders are long-distance commuters traveling on a train for longer than 40 minutes,” said Metrolink spokesman Peter Hidalgo. “If you’re getting up early in the morning and you don’t have your coffee for 40 minutes, we know you’ll become a little cranky.”

MTA rail lines run for shorter distances and with more stops. “You’re more likely to spill your coffee when you’re stopping every mile for a station,” said the MTA’s Greene.

Q: Is the MTA spending more to maintain the stalled Hollywood subway tunnel than when excavation was going on?

A: Construction on the Hollywood tunnel has effectively been shut down since mid-July, when the MTA fired main contractor Shea-Kiewitt-Kenny over a series of missteps.

Even so, the agency has spent more than $1.2 million since then to keep the tunnels in shape until new contractors arrive on the job. Work crews have had to relocate utility lines, pump water out of the tunnel and perform other maintenance operations.

The fired Shea partnership says the money that the MTA is spending on a stalled tunnel is “unconscionable.”

The firm, now engaged in a protracted legal battle with the MTA over its billings, asserted in a letter last month to CEO Franklin E. White that the agency was actually spending twice as much a month as it had when excavation and concrete work was in full production.

The MTA dismisses these assertions, saying that different types of work were being done in the tunnel before and after the Shea firm’s firing. Said agency spokesman Bill Heard: “The MTA does not need a lecture on its fiduciary duty from John Shea.”

* Times staff writer Eric Lichtblau contributed to this report.