Green Line and MTA Funding

Kudos to Robert A. Jones (“Rail Line to Nowhere Gets Another Chance,” May 10). For the eight years since my arrival in L.A. from points back East, I have struggled to comprehend the nonsensical governance of our fair city. From a mayor with seemingly no inherent power to govern, to a City Council whose only main purpose seems to be as an obstacle to implementing anything good for the city, I have watched with increasing incredulity the “let’s fund a task force to determine the feasibility of creating a committee to study the effects of . . .” approach to governing.

Jones hits the nail on the head, citing a quintessential example of L.A. decision-making by exposing the absurdity of the MTA Green Line’s failure to stop at LAX. A rail system hooking up thousands of business travelers arriving daily in L.A. with the city’s downtown business district seems like a no-brainer. It is, hence L.A.’s failure to deliver.

PETER H. CROSSIN, Los Angeles

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Apparently the state has a huge budget surplus and the Republicans want to eliminate car registration fees to put a few extra bucks in our pockets. The MTA is millions of dollars over budget and local politicians are fighting over the few scraps of funds left, threatening to bring the whole process to an embarrassing standstill. Why doesn’t the state give the MTA a little financial help with the car registration fees generated by L.A. County drivers?

What we need is a little futuristic thinking by our elected officials to make the tough decisions necessary to make sure that the Los Angeles area doesn’t become completely unlivable in the future, with the forecast population growth. A state of the art mass-transit system benefits both those in and out of cars.

SCOTT HERBERTSON, Burbank