The Wheels of Welfare Reform

The nation’s most effectively planned and well-managed mass transit systems often fail to spot a vital linkage. On one end are the job-seeking unemployed and the working poor. On the other are the outlying regions with a shortage of labor.

The Washington Area Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which serves the nation’s capital and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs, is a case in point. In the late 1980s, it offered little direct and timely help in transporting Washington’s urban unemployed to emerging job sites located some 10 to 20 miles outside of the city.

There the solution was many-pronged and only partially effective. Federal and local government funds were used to provide buses to carry workers to job sites they could not otherwise reach. The system was supplemented by shuttle services provided by employers and some church and non-profit groups.

Now, in Los Angeles and elsewhere, federal welfare reform is about to thrust a new transit-dependent population onto the roadways. Los Angeles County is not prepared.

The county’s transit system is already under court order to improve a bus system that cannot meet current needs. By December, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has to meet strict new requirements for reduced overcrowding and better service. The MTA’s interim chief executive has persuaded the board to buy up to 278 new buses for that purpose, but he is still not certain that the authority has the money to do it.

So how will former welfare recipients find a way to work and new opportunities under such circumstances?

The solution will require a combined effort from local officials, employers, business leaders and community groups. The California congressional delegation should push for the Congress to support the $600 million requested by the Clinton administration for welfare reform-related transportation initiatives. And some measure of $3 billion in related U.S. Labor Department funds ought to be devoted to the same problem. Transportation should have been considered much earlier in the welfare reform process. Now the problem is on our doorstep.