Back to Square One: MTA Needs a New Basic Plan : Lack of confidence in blueprint is creating major problems

The first long-range Metropolitan Transportation Authority plan, unveiled in 1992, proposed a behemoth with 296 new miles of subway and light-rail lines and 4,200 new buses. Estimated cost was $183 billion; time of construction, 30 years. Reality set in three years later, spurred by plummeting local sales tax revenues and voter rejection of rail bond measures.

In 1995, then-Chief Executive Officer Franklin White was forced to offer a new long-range plan. The cutback was dramatic, to 95 miles of rail lines and the rather paltry addition of 300 new buses to the nation’s most passenger-packed fleet. The costs were figured at $65 billion over 20 years. But even this new plan was almost dead on arrival. Why?

The most powerful member of the MTA Board of Directors, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, immediately suggested that it was unrealistic. The plan’s principal architect, White, was already under fire and was dumped before the end of the year. By February, Riordan was asking for a better overall plan, one based on enhanced bus service.

The same much-maligned 20-year blueprint, now pegged at $72 billion, was the subject of continued concern last week. State auditors said the plan left them uneasy and that it could represent a funding shortfall of up to $1.3 billion. It was the second report this year to question MTA cost estimates.

MTA officials defended their plan, saying that the state audit was based on old and faulty data and that they can prove that the project is within budget.

But a defense of a plan that has been questioned from day one simply isn’t good enough for the important challenges ahead. For instance, the amount of continued state and federal government funding for the MTA has become a big question. That’s especially the case at the federal level, with mass transit projects in other parts of the country vying for money that could come to Los Angeles.

Increasing the sense of unease among observers is an impending lawsuit brought by bus riders. Significant also is a U.S. Senate subcommittee probe of all aspects of the MTA money train, with possible corruption or criminal acts as targets.

The bottom line here is simple. Why isn’t there a new plan? Wouldn’t it be far more reassuring to the Congress and to the California Legislature to have a fresh appraisal, one that would reestablish confidence?

As often maligned as the MTA has been, the fact remains that it cannot be allowed to fail at its task. As a body, it will be far easier to defend in important places once it takes the proper meaning from what it insists is unfair criticism. Answer this drumbeat of concern by promising a top-to-bottom review, and back up the result with plausible, worst-case funding and revenue assumptions. Los Angeles needs a clear picture. Now.

The MTA might be shocked by the kind of relief that such an effort could generate.