Audit Questions MTA’s Blueprint for Transit Lines

A state audit released Wednesday concludes that Los Angeles County’s long-range plan for delivering a new array of bus and rail lines appears “flawed” and that it may be necessary for transit officials to again scale back their vision of how to relieve gridlock in the 21st century.

The report concluded that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s $72-billion, 20-year blueprint may contain a $1.3-billion shortfall, a finding that could force the agency to cut back or delay projects, including a proposed rail line across the San Fernando Valley and an extension of the subway to the Westside.

MTA officials disputed the findings. But they acknowledged that they must convince the state that spending is under control or else Sacramento might withhold hundreds of millions of dollars for local transit projects.

“We think we can prove we’re solvent,” said Linda Bohlinger, the MTA’s deputy chief executive officer. “But this report doesn’t help.”

The audit follows a report issued earlier this year by a think tank that also said the long-range plan was based on faulty data that underestimated the cost of building rail lines.

The state audit was prepared at the urging of state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), who has compared the subway project to a fiscal tapeworm eating into funds needed to relieve the nation’s most crowded bus lines.

Hayden, interviewed by phone from Chicago, where he is attending the Democratic National Convention, said the MTA must come up with a plan for “reducing their debt, achieving fiscal solvency and doing so without raiding bus funds further.”

The report comes at a bad time for MTA officials, who have been working hard--even dispatching staff to the Republican and Democratic conventions--to lobby for federal funds for the subway, the region’s biggest public works project.

The MTA’s long-range plan calls for building 95 miles of rail lines over the next two decades. This includes construction of a trolley linking downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena; extension of the subway from Union Station to the Eastside, the Westside and the San Fernando Valley; and construction of a rail line--most of it subway--across the Valley as far as the San Diego Freeway. The plan was adopted a year ago to replace a more expensive 1992 blueprint.

MTA officials said they had already begun exploring ways to cut costs in the plan, such as substituting an above-ground trolley for the subway across the Valley.

State auditors found that the long-range plan contains optimistic budget forecasts, relies on speculative cost savings and fails to say how the MTA will pay for $61 million of $123 million in cost overruns on the subway.

Auditors also complained that the MTA budget relied on “significant cost reductions that may not materialize.”

County transit chief Joseph E. Drew said in a statement that the auditor’s findings were based on “misinterpretations and a lack of understanding of the authority’s budgeting process.” Drew said the audit included a projected $14-million deficit in last year’s budget “which, in fact, never materialized.”

An aide to state Auditor Kurt R. Sjoberg said auditors examined the MTA’s response and “We stand by everything we have as fact.”

The state auditor also examined the MTA’s bus improvement plan, finding that some components need further work.

Noting that the MTA board adopted a policy to provide surplus money to bus improvements, the auditor noted: “The MTA has experienced difficulties in balancing its budget during the past two fiscal years, so additional revenues . . . may not be available.”

“So we’re a little uneasy as to their actual costs and how they’re going to accomplish some of these things,” said Marianne Evashenk, chief deputy state auditor.