MTA: Think Long-Term

Mayor Richard Riordan and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors need to understand the basics of how strikes are settled: Negotiate.

Political cynics no doubt look at the constituency for mass transit--largely poor, working-class and elderly riders. Their dependence on buses minimizes the possibility of large, long-term ridership losses for the MTA no matter how long the strike lasts or how it ends. Fare box losses from the strike amount to a fraction of the savings that the MTA has gained from not running trains or many buses. And Wall Street doesn’t have any current plans for reducing bond ratings because of the strike.

But this is all short-term “winning the battle but not the war” thinking.

First, and contrary to the MTA’s public war of words, the agency’s bus operating costs are not dramatically out of line with those of other large, urban mass transit systems with which they should be rightfully compared. Again, it’s a weak and short-term public argument to compare MTA bus operating costs with those of much smaller transit systems that, in part because of the difference in the population served, can operate more efficiently.

The MTA has a projected operating deficit of $438 million over the next 10 years, and its bargaining position on reducing overtime costs and changing work rules wouldn’t bring the agency nearly to where it needs to be. There are reasonable cost savings to be achieved here, but blaming the unions for the MTA’s woes is simplistic.

The MTA--its board includes the five Los Angeles County supervisors and four seats controlled by the mayor--is in this position because its 60 miles of rail lines were enormously expensive to build and maintaining them now will eat up an increasing share of funds. The agency also faces even great costs in the future when it has to take on operating the Pasadena Blue Line, not to mention even more grand rail and bus expansion plans in the San Fernando Valley and on the Eastside and the Westside. This at a time when the MTA can barely afford to operate the lines and routes it has.

Finely balanced political leadership is called for now. In public comments Wednesday Mayor Riordan launched another call for breaking up the MTA and again attacked the power of the unions. Certainly the MTA looks like an agency trying to work itself into extinction. But that kind of public baiting of the unions with which the MTA must negotiate won’t get the buses running again.

The transit strike has been a great hardship on those most dependent on public transportation. Its effects on local businesses in terms of lost customers and employee time are growing. Solving it is crucial, but the MTA apparently has even more daunting tasks ahead: learning how to run a transit system that serves Los Angeles’ needs and, more immediately, finding constructive political leadership.