Rail Critics Are Right--and Wrong

Portland is succeeding in building a rapid transit system. So are Sacramento, San Diego and San Jose. Denver is on the right track and so is Vancouver. The Bay Area did it. Seattle has just voted to begin and Salt Lake City is not far behind.

Back in 1980, Los Angeles County voters were willing to invest in our region’s economic and environmental future by building a balanced transportation system that was convenient, safe and affordable. They reaffirmed that choice in 1990.

Where did we go wrong?

The MTA got off on the wrong track from the start. The agency should have been guided by the goal of creating a modern, integrated transit system to improve the quality of life in our region. Instead, spending more than $100 billion on colossal rail projects became an end in itself.

Success in other regions comes from serving customers and communities. The failure in Los Angeles stems from serving contractors and consultants, not the public interest. As a result, perennial critics of rail transit are exploiting the crisis at the Metropolitan Transit Authority to give new life to their claim that rail won’t work in Los Angeles. They want to abandon future work on a system that already carries nearly 85,000 passengers a day.

The solution is not to scrap rail transit, but to learn from the success of rail in other large western cities. They also have encountered challenges, but are succeeding by sticking to key principles that Los Angeles has willfully ignored.

* Start with the vision. In Portland, light rail is not just a vehicle to move people. The regional transit agency calls it “part of a conscious strategy to shape regional growth” by coordinating transportation investments with land-use policy, deferring highway incentives, cleaning the air and enhancing the quality of life.

Without such a comprehensive vision, the MTA has no rudder to steer it through controversial decisions. That may explain why the last two captains have gone overboard.

* Plan to build communities, not just rail projects. Other regions have promoted “transit-oriented development” to improve property values, retail sales and access to affordable housing. In San Jose. the new arena was built next to a light rail line, making the venue an instant sports and entertainment mecca and boosting transit ridership. In Portland, Nike is investing $200 million in an expansion of its headquarters campus at a stop under the light rail extension currently under construction. Compare that with Los Angeles, where the failure to connect rail construction with land use explains how the $1-billion Green Line could miss serving Los Angeles International Airport, to which 10,000 workers commute every day.

Little effort has been made to invest in the Blue Line corridor from Los Angeles to Long Beach, although the line carries more than 50,000 riders a day. Yet Pasadena has already shown that transit-oriented development can work locally, with the construction of nearly 500 units of housing within walking distance of the future Blue Line stop in Old Pasadena.

* Control costs, reduce fares. Other regions have shown that rail can be a bargain without shortchanging the rider or the taxpayer. San Diego pinched every penny during the building of the first segment of their trolley. A consultant contract to choose the color schemes for car interiors was priced at $15,000. Instead, a city councilwoman recruited a local decorator, who did the job for $175. That mentality resulted in recapturing nearly 90% of operating costs from the fare box. Today the trolley system not only runs to the Mexican border and east to El Cajon, it’s being extended to Jack Murphy Stadium, home of the Padres.

In 1995, transit professionals from other cities conducted a peer review of the MTA’s budget for the Blue Line extension after it soared to $1 billion. Shocked by costs “without precedent in the industry,” they identified savings of 30%. Noting that “checks and balances . . . are missing or severely limited,” they called for changes in “the way business is carried out in all phases of MTA activities.”

Controlling costs allows other transit systems to offer better service and lower fares. Portland, for example, has a free fare zone for both buses and light rail throughout the downtown area. By learning from cities with less grandiose but more cost-effective approaches to serving transit customers, we can avoid pitting bus against rail. Both are needed to make public transit an attractive option, not a last resort.

Rail critics who insist that all we need are buses and new technology fail to take into account the staggering economic, social and environmental costs of an auto-dependent landscape. They never challenge the MTA’s $5.5-billion program to expand highway capacity by adding high-occupancy vehicle lanes and widening major arterials.

Portland’s motto, “How we get there matters,” is instructive. Rail rapid transit is an essential part of creating an integrated network that includes bus, bike and pedestrian connections to more compact and livable communities. In 1980, Los Angeles County chose that route to the future. Rail critics want us to turn back. The experience of other cities offers a guide for going forward.