Eastside: Buck Stops Here for MTA

The latest brouhaha over Los Angeles’ Red Line subway is more than another political brawl over scarce federal funds for a big project whose cost is nearing $6 billion. It could kill the subway by angering the community that has been among the controversial project’s biggest supporters--L.A.’s Latinos.

Last week’s Red Line flap began when the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board voted at the last moment to add $44 million to a $679 million transportation wish-list the MTA must send to Congress by Tuesday to be eligible for federal transit aid. The MTA oversees subway construction, but it also runs a sprawling system of buses, so its wish-list included $250 million for new buses and $154 million to extend busways.

The point of contention is $158 million MTA wants the feds to ante for the Red Line, which currently runs 5.3 miles from Union Station to Western Avenue. The request included $100 million to extend one segment west into the Mid-City area and $58 million to plan a possible (my emphasis) subway extension across the San Fernando Valley from North Hollywood, which is the terminus planned for the segment now under construction.

Nobody at MTA seems able or willing to explain why, but no federal money was requested to help pay for a Red Line extension into East Los Angeles.

The omission apparently went right by the Eastside’s two MTA representatives, City Councilman Richard Alatorre and County Supervisor Gloria Molina. But it didn’t get past another Eastside political veteran who is in a key position to help--or hinder--the subway, Rep. Esteban Torres (D-La Puente).

Torres is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which must approve any transit monies that come L.A.’s way. So when he insisted that Eastside subway funding be included in the request, the MTA jumped--and muy pronto.

But not without complaints by Valley representatives, who say that adding $44 million to the MTA’s application may make it harder to get the $58 million they want to plan the Valley line. Perhaps. But a possible turndown has never kept the MTA from asking for the moon (while privately hoping it could at least get to La Brea).

Fact is, Valley representatives like County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky are just playing politics with this issue. Bashing downtown plays well in the ‘burbs--take it from someone who grew up, and still lives, there. That’s fine, and even to be expected. What irks me is the hypocrisy involved.

For if transit experts had their way, the Red Line probably would never have gone into the Valley. Even transit specialists who question the wisdom of a subway in Los Angeles have argued that, if we insist on building one, the most logical route for it is along the most densely populated corridor in the city which is also, not coincidentally, the most transit-dependent. That route would run from the Eastside through downtown and along Wilshire Boulevard to Santa Monica.

The reason the Red Line doesn’t go due west, but instead jogs northward at Western Avenue toward Hollywood and the Valley, is purely political. The visionaries who originally pushed for the subway, like former Mayor Tom Bradley and former County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, knew that to sell such an ambitious scheme they had to offer Valley voters at least the hope that L.A.’s shiny new transit system would eventually head over (or under) the Hollywood Hills.

With work now being done on two Red Line stations in North Hollywood, Valley residents have their subway access--although until I actually see them riding it in big numbers, I remain skeptical that folks in the Valley will actually use a subway.

I have no such doubts about the Eastside or the crowded Latino neighborhoods just west of downtown. MTA’s buses in both areas are always jammed. And when the subway gets to the Eastside, it will be crowded, too. In fact, in the long debate over mass transit in Los Angeles, one of the few givens is that Latinos will ride it.

Even a recent Times poll found that Latinos are the subway’s biggest supporters. While 45% of white city residents support the subway and 51% oppose it, 50% of Latinos support it. More important, while 35% of whites who were polled said they would actually ride the subway, 62% of Latinos said they would.

That is why it’s so odd that the MTA did not include the Eastside in its federal funding wish-list.

I have a cynical suspicion why. The Eastside has been a headache of late for the MTA. It even cost the agency’s former CEO, Joseph Drew, his job when he tried to steer a contract to political supporters of Alatorre despite an expert panel’s recommendations that it go to another firm. When Molina questioned Drew’s decision, he resigned in a huff.

Could it be that some on the MTA board are still angry at Alatorre and Molina for stirring up such a fuss, and tried to pull a fast one on them by excluding the Eastside from future subway plans? If so, shame on Alatorre and Molina for being so obviously out of the loop. But shame on the rest of the MTA board, too. Such behavior is sadly consistent with the neglect MTA has shown in recent years for its best customers, Latino bus riders.