4 MTA Sectors Urged for Better Bus Service

A massive reorganization of the Los Angeles transit agency aimed at improving bus service was proposed Monday by its top official.

Chief Executive Roger Snoble suggested breaking the Metropolitan Transportation Authority into four “sectors,” with their own headquarters, general managers and budgets. Each would be responsible for bus service in its area.

Currently, that work is done from the MTA’s high-rise headquarters in downtown Los Angeles.

The MTA simply needs to be “more responsive” to customers, Snoble said. “We need to find a way to deliver better service.”

Snoble, who is still developing the plan, said he was confident a first sector could be running by July 1. That sector, he said, would be the San Fernando Valley. Others would be in west, south and central Los Angeles. Snoble said the MTA might streamline some of its work force in the process.

He outlined the plan before the board of the San Fernando Valley Transportation Zone, a group that has spent two years preparing to create a transit zone in the Valley. Such a zone eventually would break away from the MTA.

Snoble’s plan, if it happened, would preempt the transit zones, and the sectors would remain part of the MTA. The agency would continue to be responsible for rail projects, bus lines that cross the city and the new Rapid Bus Service.

Transit zones have been touted in some corners as a way to improve bus service by operating from smaller agencies that can easily change routes to fit needs.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the Valley Transportation Zone and an MTA member, said he was impressed with Snoble’s plan and promised to give it strong consideration.

He told Snoble to continue developing it, but he also promised to continue studying zoning.

Assemblyman Keith Richman (R-Northridge) urged the board to keep focusing on the transit zones, saying the MTA’s plan might not work out.