Transit Reorganization--Road Turns Bumpy

With the big city of Los Angeles pitted against the suburbs, the highly publicized drive to reorganize Los Angeles County’s much criticized public transit system is running into trouble.

“I think we ought to protect the inner city, where most of the transit riders live,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman, whose 3rd District runs through the heart of Los Angeles, from the poor and middle-class areas, to the heavily Latino Eastside, to Beverly Hills.

Just as intense are the feelings from suburban cities that have their own municipal bus lines and are afraid of a reorganization plan that might cut their funds to pay for projects that would help Los Angeles.

“The small bus lines want to preserve what they’ve got,” said Dr. Peter Fielding of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California at Irvine.

The California Transportation Commission, in a report last year, said such conflicts go to the heart of solving the problems of a state whose rural areas are rapidly becoming urban.

“Service must continue to be provided in the urban centers but attention must also be directed to those areas away from the center,” the report said. “That may be difficult.”

The urban-suburban split is particularly apparent in Sacramento where the Senate Transportation Committee is considering a reorganization bill by Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys).

Robbins’ bill would eliminate the two agencies that now run public transit in Los Angeles County, the Southern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

The RTD, whose huge bus network is centered in the city but extends throughout the county, has been accused of mismanagement and critics have said that the agency is incapable of handling its additional tasks--construction and operation of the Metro Rail subway and operation of future light-rail lines.

The commission, created as a policy-making and financing organization, has been attacked for duplicating the RTD by constructing a light-rail line and wanting a voice in rail operations.

Robbins proposes replacing the two bodies with a Metropolitan Transit Authority headed by a board consisting of two Los Angeles County supervisors, the mayor or another elected official from Los Angeles, two city council members from smaller cities, a legislator and a gubernatorial appointee.

But the suburban-city conflict, along with Senate rivalries, has stalled the bill and shed light on the deep political differences within the county that are making it difficult to reorganize transit operations.

In the background of what is happening in the committee are the political, ethnic and economic divisions of Los Angeles County, which make it hard to find agreement on any issue. The differences are clearly shown in figures supplied by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government of Claremont McKenna College.

Los Angeles is overwhelmingly Democratic, 63% to 28% Republican, with more than 27% of its population Latino, 17% black and almost 7% Asian. Liberal, it backs Democratic presidential and gubernatorial candidates even in the party’s most disastrous elections.

Suburban cities, with some exceptions, are more white, more Republican and more conservative. Torrance, in the South Bay, for example, was 84% white in the 1980 Census, and Republicans outnumbered Democrats 47% to 43% in the 1984 election. That year, President Reagan carried Torrance by a 72.5% margin while a ballot measure to strengthen Proposition 13 carried 57.4% to 42.6%.

Long Beach, 74% white in 1980, was 53.2% Democratic in 1984 but backed Reagan by 57%. West Covina, in the San Gabriel Valley, was 78% white, 50% Democratic and pro-Reagan by a 67% margin.

Political differences are also seen in rival transit policies.

Reorganization proposals from the suburbs tend more toward ideas favored by conservative theorists, Reagan and Gov. George Deukmejian--decentralization, strong support for small city operations, turning transit operations over to private business and limiting transit union power.

City representatives such as Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, on the other hand, oppose any disruption of the status quo that would hurt the huge city bus service or stop work on Metro Rail and other rail projects designed to carry workers into downtown Los Angeles. And generally, they are pro-union.

Making the differences even sharper is the increasing vested interest that the suburbs are showing in public transit.

“Some of the strongest supporters of public transit have been the suburban cities,” said UC Irvine’s Fielding.

Gardena, for example, carried 3.8 million passengers in the 1985-86 fiscal year and city officials said the 47-year-old city-owned bus line did it at a substantially lower cost, comparatively, than the RTD.

Fielding said the lines are also a source of civic pride to the smaller cities, which traditionally struggle for identity in the sprawling Los Angeles Basin. “It gives tangible identity to areas where there is no tangible identity,” he said.

At the first legislative hearing on the Robbins reorganization bill, by the Senate Transportation Committee on Feb. 17, opposition from small cities helped block action. Sen. Ralph Dills (D-Gardena) cited the fears of Gardena Mayor Donald L. Dear, who had expressed concern over a new transit body taking over the operating duties of the RTD and the fiscal powers of the commission.

“Our concern is that whatever format is decided upon, efficient municipal bus operators should be guaranteed adequate representation,” Dear said in a letter to Dills. “Also, there is a conflict-of-interest problem if a consolidated transit board is both operator and funding agency.”

Sen. Wadie P. Deddeh (D-Chula Vista), the committee chairman, cited the same misgivings among several objections that he had to the Robbins bill. At the close of the hearing, Deddeh was vague on when a vote would be held. A committee source said Deddeh will not hold another hearing until Robbins “addresses all the issues” that concern the chairman.

Gardena was happy with Dills’ work. “We thanked the senator for his more than adequate presentation,” said Mike Wapner, senior administrative assistant for the city.

Gardena and other smaller cities expressing similar concerns--Santa Monica and Torrance, for example--were also helped by current power rivalries within the Senate, in which Deddeh and Robbins are on opposite sides.

Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti (D-Los Angeles) had appointed political ally Robbins to the California Transportation Commission, a legislative spot that traditionally goes to the Transportation Committee chairman. Deddeh wants the spot. He and his allies in the Senate’s conservative caucus are pressing liberal Roberti, who is trying to keep his job under increasing conservative pressure, to dump Robbins and give the job to Deddeh.

Now, Los Angeles is adding its voice, opposing the Robbins bill because it gives too much power to the conservative, suburban-oriented Board of Supervisors.

While backing a merger of the RTD and the commission into a single agency, the Los Angeles City Council has insisted that the city have equal representation with the county.

City Councilman Michael Woo said: “The city generates 73% of all the RTD trips within the county and we are a major partner in terms of financing Metro Rail and other projects.” As for Robbins’ bill, Woo said: “We see this as unfair and a grab for power. It gives power to the county and the state and reduces city power.”

But even within the city, differences complicate the picture and make it difficult for Los Angeles to present a united front against the Robbins bill.

Bradley flatly opposes merger of the RTD and the county Transportation Commission. He does, however, back creation of a new agency to take over rail construction--an idea that has the support of Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Deddeh.

For the immediate future, however, what is important is that both Bradley and the council oppose Robbins’ bill. That fact, plus the opposition of small cities and Senate rivalries, present a formidable obstacle to Robbins, who has antagonized the big city and the smaller ones.

Waiting on the sidelines with his own proposal is Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, who said he will unveil it next Monday.

Katz said he does not like the Robbins plan, especially Robbins’ proposal to have the governor make an appointment to the new board, and for a legislator to have a seat on the body.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana, who has been a strong advocate of reorganization, said he concedes that the situation looks gloomy now but that he believes agreement will be reached by the end of the legislative session.

Dana backs the Robbins bill but he said he would make concessions to end the present system of what he considers wasteful duplication. His main interest is that the new board have members who are elected officials--supervisors, council members, the mayor of Los Angeles.

“I would do most anything for accountability, as long as there are actually elected officials on the board,” Dana said.