Firing White, Valley Subway

* Re “White, Embattled Head of Transit Agency, Is Fired,” Dec. 21: Franklin White was not the source of the MTA’s problems and firing him is not a solution.

The MTA board will continue to thwart and subvert the efforts of the new manager as well. And nothing will cure the fundamental flaw in the MTA’s plans: There is no feasible rail system that can lure enough people out of cars to make a noticeable difference in L.A.’s congestion.

CHARLES LAVE

Professor of Economics

UC Irvine

* Re “Riordan Seeks to Kill Valley Subway,” Dec. 20:

The $2.2-billion cost of extending the Red Line subway through the Valley is no more expensive than starting up a new surface light rail line. To start new light rail service, MTA would have to procure new trains, build a new maintenance facility, stock repair and replacement parts and train mechanics and technicians to maintain the new system. If the Red Line is extended, the MTA would be able to use the existing trains and maintenance facilities and would need only to hire a few additional technicians.

Valley residents living near the proposed extension do not want the problems that would beassociated with a surface rail line. The existing Red Line can be extended either as a subway or using the “cut and cover” technique. White realized that it would be folly to abandon the Red Line at this point because it would result in a patchwork rail system in Los Angeles which, in the long run, would be more expensive to build and maintain. White’s refusal to bow to politicians whose loyalties change with the wind demonstrates that he was a more than capable leader for the MTA.

Politicians like Mayor Richard Riordan, Supervisor Mike Antonovich and state Sen. Tom Hayden are concerned only with their own pet projects and short-term goals which will ensuretheir reelection. Let’s take the MTA out of the hands of people like this and leave it to those who care about the long-term concerns of transit service in Los Angeles.

GREG TAYLOR

Glendale

* The subway construction was never intended primarily to help move people; rather its purpose was first and foremost to move public money into private profit, whereby contractors could get rich, and in the process funnel amounts to politicians as “contributions.” How else would a system be designed that did not, as its highest priority, seek to link the airport with the main business districts? Even after all the first-phase plans are complete, there still will not be such a link in place.

Above-ground construction was known to be faster, cheaper, safer, easier and more flexible. The public feared a clattering monstrosity like the old-time elevated trains of last century. This was in the contractors’ interests, and they did nothing to disabuse the old myth, by showing how futuristic and noninvasive contemporary elevated trains can be. Shame on the politicians who knew the truth, but preferred the boondoggle.

Hanging the mess on the beleaguered White is unfair and cowardly.

FRED GLIENNA

South Pasadena