Molina Promises MTA Safety Review

The chairman of the MTA’s powerful construction committee vowed Wednesday to hold a hearing to determine whether the agency’s decision two years ago to monitor safety with its own staff rather than with consultants is working.

“We didn’t like the way it was done by outsiders, so it’s worthwhile to look at how we are doing,” county Supervisor Gloria Molina said during the agency’s monthly board meeting, which adjourned in honor of deceased tunnel worker Jaime Pasillas.

Two weeks after Pasillas was killed in the first fatal accident in the 10-year history of Los Angeles subway construction, several other MTA board members also called for a comprehensive review of the transit agency’s workplace safety efforts.

The Tutor-Saliba-Perini laborer died Feb. 15 when he was hit in the head by a half-ton refuse bin that broke free of a light chain, according to investigators. State workplace safety regulators are expected to conclude a report and issue citations against the contractor as soon as next week.

Until 1995, the agency contracted with construction management teams to ensure that subway contractors worked safely as they kept to a budget and schedule. A series of spectacular accidents, however, led the MTA to take the safety effort in-house, and it hired its own staff of up to 18 safety engineers.

MTA officials have said safety staffers cannot be in all station and tunnel work sites at all times, so the hour-to-hour safety effort is left largely up to the contractors.

“I would say we have a good safety record,” said Dan Jackson, director of construction safety at the agency.

Board member Nicholas Patsaouras said in an interview that an MTA program that awards $500,000 bonuses to those contractors for meeting minimum safety standards is “a disgrace.” An article in The Times on Tuesday revealed that Tutor-Saliba could be eligible for a $500,000 bonus despite Pasillas’ death.

“We’re rewarding contractors to do what they’re already paid handsomely to do,” Patsaouras said.

In Sacramento, state Sen. Quentin L. Kopp (I-San Francisco) introduced legislation that would abolish the MTA.

The influential Transportation Committee chairman said his bill would replace the MTA with separate agencies to run buses, build and operate rail systems, and a transportation commission to plan and seek state and federal transit funding.

Kopp said several hearings that he has held in Los Angeles over the past two years have led him to conclude that the MTA’s “manifestly unsatisfactory” performance has stemmed from conflicts of interest that arise when a single agency funds, builds and plans competing types of transit systems.

In other action, the MTA agreed to expand operation of the Freeway Service Patrol, a fleet of 150 tow trucks that prowl Los Angeles freeways to quickly clear up accidents and aid motorists whose vehicles break down.

The free service, begun in 1991, will operate from the morning commute through the evening commute on weekdays, and on weekends from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. In addition, the service will be available Friday and Saturday nights from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m.

At the behest of Mayor Richard Riordan, the board voted to seek up to $151 million in additional help from the state to keep construction of the Pasadena extension of the Metro Rail Blue Line on schedule.

Yaroslavsky objected to singling out the Pasadena line for additional state funding and successfully insisted on including the Metro Rail Red Line extensions to the Eastside and Mid-City area in the funding request.