MTA Chief Calls for Rail Fare Hike, Bus Line Cuts

By JEFFREY L. RABIN and RICHARD SIMON

Nov. 11, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The corporate turnaround specialist hired to straighten out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s financial mess on Monday proposed a 50-cent increase in rail fares and reductions in non-rush hour bus service as a prelude to more dramatic cuts in the agency’s rail construction program next month.

The fare hike and service cuts are among proposals MTA’s chief executive, Julian Burke, unveiled as part of his attempt to erase a $50.6-million deficit in the transit agency’s operating budget.

“This is a serious start at changing a whole system of thinking within the organization,” said Burke, who added that the MTA has no choice but to become more efficient at providing transit service.

Burke already has announced his intention to lay off 67 employees, eliminate 100 other positions and cancel a pay raise for nonunion workers, but he readily acknowledged that Monday’s proposals will probably generate greater controversy. Burke plans to seek an increase in the cash fare to ride MTA rail lines, from $1.35 to $1.85, effective April 1.

The proposed increase would give Los Angeles a higher fare than New York City, which charges $1.50 to ride its buses and subway.

The bus service reductions--including less frequent non-rush hour service on two dozen lines, elimination of weekend service on eight lines and shortening the routes on four bus lines--would go into effect next spring. These are in addition to the cancellation of four late-night bus lines due to take effect in mid-December.

By way of example, midday buses on Line 166, which runs along Nordhoff Street in the San Fernando Valley, would stop at bus stops every hour instead of every half hour between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.

Civil rights attorneys who last year won a historic federal court order directing costly improvements to the huge bus system--the nation’s most crowded--said they would oppose any cuts until they see bus improvements.

“There cannot be any cuts in service until I see substantial improvements in service,” said Constance L. Rice, western regional counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney in the court case.

“We’re not interested in keeping lines that don’t serve people,” she said. “But you can’t start the conversation with cuts in service when you’ve refused to do anything to improve service and have actually permitted your bus system in the first year of the decree to sink further in a hole.”

MTA officials contend that they are making progress in reducing overcrowding, but Rice said bus rider advocates are photographing “sardine-like conditions” on some lines to document the continued crowding.

Although the consent decree froze the bus fare for two years and the pass fare for three years, Burke said it did not prevent the agency from raising rail fares.

Burke’s proposed “premium rail fare,” which must be approved by the MTA board, calls for riders who buy a $42 monthly transit pass to pay an extra $15 a month to ride the Los Angeles subway, the Los Angeles-to-Long Beach Blue Line or the Norwalk-to-El Segundo Green Line. (The elderly, disabled and student pass holders would be exempt from the pass surcharge.)

Transferring from a bus to a rail line--currently 25 cents--would cost an extra 50 cents for most riders and an extra quarter for the elderly and disabled.

Burke was brought in last August by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, chairman of the MTA board, to bring financial order to an agency harshly criticized by federal officials for promising more than it can deliver.

He traveled to Washington last week to meet with Federal Transit Administrator Gordon Linton and Donald Bliss, the “special master” appointed by U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. to oversee implementation of the bus system consent decree. Burke said he wants to establish a working relationship with Bliss and the groups whose suit against the MTA alleged that overcrowding on the bus system amounted to racial discrimination.

But erasing the operating deficit is the easy part. With the exception of increases in rail fares and cuts in off-peak bus service, the moves to balance the operating budget are far easier to sell politically than the choices that will confront the agency’s board next month when it faces abandoning or delaying long-sought rail projects.

The MTA board still must decide the fate of subway extensions to the Eastside and Mid-City, a Los Angeles-to-Pasadena rail line and a rail line across the San Fernando Valley. “We have a lot of work yet to do,” Burke said.

Already, the financial realities are clear. The agency does not have the money to build both a subway extension to the Eastside and a light rail line to Pasadena.

Burke signaled the trouble ahead when he slashed the MTA’s overly optimistic projections of annual growth in the penny-on-the-dollar transit sales tax that is the agency’s financial lifeline. For years, the MTA board has used inflated projections of a 7% growth rate in sales taxes to justify--on paper, at least--its promises to build more rail lines than could be delivered.

Under pressure from federal transit officials, Burke has dropped the sales tax projection to 4%. That move combined with the lowest federal appropriation for rail construction in a decade will leave a gaping hole in an ambitious rail construction program.

Burke and the board are committed to completing the 17-mile subway from Union Station to North Hollywood, but there are no assurances the subway ever will go beyond that.

The MTA board must hold a public hearing before the rail fare can be increased.

There are about 110,000 boardings a day on the MTA’s three rail lines. Officials say a fare increase will cause ridership to decline by 6% to 7%, but they expect it to climb back up after the subway extension to Hollywood opens late next year.

A fare increase on MTA rail lines would put additional pressure on Metrolink to raise fares on its commuter trains, said Richard Stanger, executive director of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority.

Metrolink passengers transferring to the subway do not need to buy another ticket; subway fare is included in their Metrolink ticket, officials say. Stanger said Metrolink officials have already begun a process that “more than likely will lead to a fare increase” next year. “This is just another reason why we would do it.”

Some cities have higher fares based on time of day and distance traveled. But in Los Angeles, the fare for a 22-mile trip on the Blue Line from Long Beach is the same as a two-mile ride on the subway. Installation of new fare equipment based on trip length would be a time consuming and costly undertaking, MTA officials said.

The MTA increased the fare on the subway from 25 cents to $1.35 in July 1996 after the subway was extended to Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue.

Rail riders are more affluent and less dependent on public transit than MTA bus riders. But 30% of rail riders have an annual household income of less than $15,000, according to an MTA survey.

“These are not the final answers to making this operation work correctly,” Burke said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

MTA Plan

Here are some of the key points in the proposal to turn around the financial affairs of the Metropolitan Transportation Agency:

Increase the rail fare to $1.85, from $1.35.

Add a $15 per month surcharge for use of rail service by those purchasing $42 monthly bus passes.

Eliminate or modify a variety of bus routes and segments, including:

Line Cancellations:

* Lines 10, 18 and 38 from midnight to 5 a.m.

Segment Cancellations:

* Line 33/333 from 2nd St./Santa Monica Blvd. to Venice Circle.

* Line 200 from Echo Park Ave./Donaldson St. to Montana St./Echo Park Ave.