Time for a Truce

Despite the tug-of-war between Los Angeles County’s two transit agencies, level-headed folks on both sides have managed to work out a compromise proposal. If it is accepted by the warring factions, it would settle not only some short-term disputes but lay the groundwork for resolving future disagreements.

The plan to settle the struggle for turf between the Southern California Rapid Transit District, the region’s largest bus agency, and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which collects local sales-tax revenues that pay for mass-transit projects, was hammered out by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, County Supervisor Deane Dana and staff from both agencies. Like most good compromises, it has something in it for both sides.

The most immediate effect of the eight-point plan would be to resolve an impending money crisis for the RTD, which was faced with cutting back bus service because the Transportation Commission refused to turn over RTD’s share of local transit funds. In exchange for getting that money, $36 million at last count, the RTD would agree to drop its opposition to an experiment in private bus service in the San Gabriel Valley that is being paid for by the Transportation Commission. The bus-service experiment is a pet project of County Supervisor Pete Schabarum, the current chairman of the Transportation Commission. The compromise would also leave RTD as the lead agency in building the Metro Rail subway between downtown and the San Fernando Valley. The Transportation Commission would remain the lead agency in building the light-rail trolley line between downtown and Long Beach. Once the two projects are ready to go, RTD would have the responsibility for operating them.

But the most important point in the agreement is a mechanism to resolve future disputes between RTD and the commission. Both sides would agree to submit disagreements to an arbitration committee composed of three members from each agency’s board. If both agencies, and the public officials on their boards, approach this compromise with farsightedness and professional dignity, it could end Los Angeles’ transit war once and for all.