Candidates Take Different Paths on Improving Transit System

One Los Angeles mayoral candidate proposes an ambitious plan to overhaul the regional transit agency, add 850 new buses, slash transit fares and offer free rides if a bus arrives more than 10 minutes late.

The other candidate wants to focus on street-level solutions, such as installing more left-turn lanes, eliminating street parking on major roads and banning street construction during peak commuting hours.

In the race for mayor, the transportation plans of former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn are as distinct as the candidates. They offer two significantly different visions of the region’s transportation future and reflect two candidates who draw upon divergent bases of political support.

Villaraigosa, the passionate, grass-roots coalition-builder from the Eastside, said his priority is to fix an overburdened bus system that primarily serves the region’s poor, elderly and transit-dependent.

Hahn, the temperate prosecutor and the heir to one of the city’s best-known political names, offers a plan that emphasizes reducing gridlock on freeways and streets used daily by millions of suburban commuters.

Bill Fulton, publisher of California Planning and Development Report, a newsletter about municipal growth issues, suggests that the plans were designed to gain political advantage in the June 5 runoff.

“They are going after a different voter base” he said. “Hahn is going after the white [San Fernando] Valley vote, and Villaraigosa is going after the emerging Latino vote.”

Both candidates dismiss such suggestions, saying that their plans were designed solely to improve transportation.

“I’ve come up with what I think are practical, can-do approaches, not pie in the sky,” said Hahn. “You can make a lot of improvements with these kind of common-sense solutions.”

In a Times poll last month, voters said reducing traffic should be a priority for the next mayor.

Voters have responded to the issue on the campaign trail. Although businessman Steve Soboroff did not attract enough support to make the runoff, crowds often reacted warmly to his transportation recommendations, which ranged from reversible traffic lanes to limiting construction work during rush hour.

Voter concern about congestion is understandable. Freeways are nearing capacity, and congestion is increasing at a rate of 3% per year, as measured by the number of miles of clogged freeways. It is expected to increase as Southern California absorbs a projected 7 million new residents in the next 20 years.

The public transit system in Los Angeles County is overburdened and short on cash, and there is no clear consensus among elected officials on how to improve it.

“The next mayor is going to have to deal with the transportation challenges of the region,” said Ron Bates, president of the Southern California Assn. of Governments. “It’s not going to be easy.”

The mayor wields great influence over transportation matters. He oversees the city agencies that pave streets, enforce parking laws, manage the harbors and airports, and operate city bus service.

The mayor also sits on the 13-member board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and has the power to appoint three other members. The MTA, with a $2.5-billion annual budget, operates nearly 2,000 buses, two light-rail lines and a subway.

When the late Tom Bradley was mayor, he forged a formidable coalition of business and labor to press for the funds to build the city’s $4.7-billion Metro Rail subway.

But the next mayor could face cuts in transit funding because of a slowing economy and the energy crisis, which has already cost the state nearly $5.2 billion in general tax dollars to pay for electricity.

“We are in new territory now,” said MTA spokesman Marc Littman. “Who knows what can happen?”

Both mayoral candidates promise to lobby for additional state and federal money to make their transportation plans succeed.

“We will fight the funding cuts to make sure that Los Angeles gets its fair share,” Hahn said.

Both candidates want the MTA to drop its appeal of a court order requiring the agency to buy 350 new buses to relieve overcrowding. Both also support expanding a new rapid bus program and a computerized traffic signal system designed to reduce delays at intersections.

But Villaraigosa, a former member of the MTA board and the Assembly Transportation Committee, has gone further. His plan calls on the MTA to slash bus fares from $1.35 to 50 cents and add 500 new clean-air buses beyond the 350 ordered by the court. By increasing bus ridership, Villaraigosa said, his plan would reduce car trips, thus easing overall traffic congestion.

Villaraigosa said he will press to restructure the MTA board to remove political considerations from transit planning decisions. But he has offered proposals.

Some MTA officials and transportation experts said Villaraigosa’s plan is unrealistic because it would require officials from communities around Los Angeles to accept funding cuts from other programs outside the region’s urban core.

“If he can do all of that and pay for it, that would be terrific,” said Brian Taylor, associate director for the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA. “But in an era of limited resources you have to make choices.”

The former Assembly speaker concedes that he must win widespread political support to secure funding, but he said he is confident.

“I’ve had those naysayers before,” he said. “There have been people who question my ability to get things done in the past, and I’ve been able to create the consensus to meet those issues.”

Transportation experts said Hahn’s plan is practical but includes no original initiatives.

For example, Hahn’s platform calls for improvements to the city’s 25 most congested and dangerous intersections each year. Last year, the city’s Department of Transportation launched an effort to do just that after a 4% increase in accidents from 1997 to 1999.

Both candidates have proposed expanding a system that uses video cameras and computers to synchronize signals to increase traffic flow. The system, known as the Automatic Traffic Surveillance and Control System, has been installed on more than half of the city’s 4,200 traffic signals. City traffic engineers plan to connect another 284 signals to the system this year.

Hahn said he would limit street work during peak traffic periods.

But state and city transportation officials said street and freeway maintenance is already prohibited during heavy commuting hours, except for emergency repairs.

James Okazaki, assistant general manager of the city’s transportation department, said Hahn’s proposal to install more left-turn lanes is sensible but must be balanced with other considerations. Adding the lanes sometimes means eliminating parking spaces.

“It’s a balancing act,” he said. “Whenever you put in a left-turn lane, you have to squeeze something out.”