MTA Railroaded Valley Taxpayers

San Fernando Valley taxpayers were first suckered in 1980. That’s when Proposition A, a half-cent sales tax that promised an East-West Valley rail line, was approved by Los Angeles County voters.

Another half-cent sales tax measure for mass transit, Proposition C, was passed in 1990.

Now, after many years of holding out false hopes, Valley taxpayers and leaders have come to realize the hard truth: They’ve been shafted.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has failed them. Promised rail lines have never materialized and never will. In 1995, Valley rail was taken off the MTA’s priority list with the money going to 12 other projects, including road improvements for the DreamWorks SKG development. Sales-tax revenues of $1.3 billion generated by Valley taxpayers through Propositions A and C have gone elsewhere.

Through mismanagement, overcommitments and unrealistic revenue projections, it has become clear the MTA can no longer provide adequate bus service for the Valley, let alone a regional plan to manage traffic, serve the transit-dependent and reduce pollution.

No amount of tinkering through state legislation can solve the fundamental problems inside the MTA’s grand 26-story “Taj Mahal.”

The MTA got into this sorry shape by pursuing a subway system that costs more than $300 million per mile. An amazing 20% of its budget goes to debt service on the subway bonds. And although the MTA board voted this month to suspend rail construction for six months, it could not muster the courage to kill the gravy train outright. In fact, we learned recently that the Hollywood segment of the Red Line subway is $79.1 million over budget. That puts the cost of the Hollywood subway at $1.7 billion, $240 million over the original 1990 price tag.

How will the MTA deal with this? By selling more bonds to be paid, in part, by Valley residents.

Some Valley officeholders have floated the suggestion of creating a San Fernando Valley transit zone to operate the buses. They point to the success of Foothill Transit in the San Gabriel Valley as an example.

But like Foothill Transit, a Valley transit zone would still be under the authority of the MTA and only advisory in character.

It’s time to give the nearly 1.2 million Valley residents ultimate control in creating a mass transit system that works for them.

I will introduce legislation that would create a San Fernando Valley Transportation Authority. The VTA would be an autonomous agency and have all the powers and responsibilities now afforded the MTA.

The VTA would do more than just run the buses. It would plan and program resources for a Valley transportation system and negotiate and coordinate with regional, state and federal agencies.

No longer would tax revenues raised in the Valley go elsewhere. Money generated in the Valley through Propositions A and C would go to the VTA. The subway bond indebtedness run up by the MTA would have to be paid, but the Valley would only pay its fair share based on the assets it has received. The VTA also would receive its share of state money from gas taxes for local transportation projects. The money now goes to the MTA.

The VTA boundaries would be the county line to the west, Mulholland Drive to the south, the eastern edge of Glendale to the east and the northern edge of the cities of Los Angeles and San Fernando to the north.

The 15-member board would be appointed by the cities within the VTA region, the state Legislature and the governor. Board members should live in the VTA region and have expertise or knowledge in regional transportation planning or have a history of community or civic involvement in quality-of-life issues.

A local transportation board would have a different take on how to move folks around the Valley. For instance, would a local board have shifted $207 million in state transportation money to bail out the North Hollywood subway extension? Sure, the subway line reaches the Valley at Universal City and then goes on to North Hollywood, but according to the MTA’s own figures it will carry very few passengers when finished--less than 1% of the daily commute trips in the county.

Wouldn’t that money have been better spent on a dedicated busway along Burbank-Chandler or some other agreed-upon corridor? The money could have been used for carpool lanes, sound walls, signal synchronization or other capital projects to reduce traffic and pollution.

I’m afraid the MTA board will rely on the same old “creative financing” in six months when it revisits the subway issue. At this months’s MTA board meeting, a motion to kill the subway for good was soundly defeated. Instead the board voted to keep the subway alive, even if it means the bankruptcy of the agency.

The Valley shouldn’t be sucked into a fiscal sinkhole yet to come.