Reality at Last for the MTA

Throughout its brief history, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has chased a transit system dream far beyond its means. That is the starting point in understanding why the agency now faces such a substantial and necessary downsizing in plans and personnel.

It began in 1992 with a grandiose blueprint that seems unimaginable now: 296 miles of new rail lines and 4,200 new buses. In 1995, the MTA’s first chief executive slashed that to 95 miles of rail and 300 new buses, but that didn’t solve much. It didn’t go far enough in overall cuts, but at the same time it went too far in cutting buses, and a lawsuit by bus riders ensued.

The MTA’s second chief executive promised that every part of the 1995 long-range plan could be met, a fantasy if ever there was one. The federal government ordered the MTA to come up with realistic goals, and the authority has twice failed to meet that test. Meanwhile, the first big deadline looms on a court consent decree in which the MTA has promised to add many more buses and ease overcrowding on routes used heavily by the working poor.

Under such circumstances, it is fortunate that the MTA now has a respected financial problem solver at the helm. Temporary chief executive Julian Burke, sought out by Mayor Richard Riordan, seems set on a course that the MTA should have taken from the beginning: realistic revenue projections, further scaling back rail projects and achieving the kind of streamlined and efficient transit authority that exists in Orange County.

Burke says reductions in personnel will be necessary and he’s right, particularly since the authority’s own figures show that between 20% and 25% of its work force consists of executive management, professional and administrative positions and their support staff.

Now those who rightly view Los Angeles County and its independent cities as worthy of a transportation system comparable to this nation’s best will have to swallow some pride. The MTA will qualify for more leniency from federal and state transportation officials only after it has reduced its plans to achievable if unimpressive levels. That’s the situation that the MTA and its board have helped create, and that all of Los Angeles County will now have to live with.