Let’s Be Clear, the Merger Is Here

The merger of Los Angeles County’s two rival transit agencies was sold to taxpayers as a money-saving step, and it still could be. But not if the boards of directors for both agencies keep trying to sign contracts and spend other monies before the merger occurs.

The Southern California Rapid Transit District (RTD), which operates the county’s biggest bus system as well as the new Red Line subway and Blue Line trolleys, will merge with the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC). The commission collects local transit taxes and is using the money to plan and build the region’s new mass transit system. Effective April 1, the two will come together as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

The merger was ordered by the Legislature as an efficiency measure after years of bickering between the two agencies. But as the old agencies wind down, it looks as if some transit officials have decided that because there’s no tomorrow, they’ll spend money like it--and perhaps even resist the implications of merger.

The most egregious case is the LACTC’s stubborn attempt to build itself a new headquarters more than a mile from where the new RTD headquarters building is under construction adjacent to the historical Union Station. The LACTC contends that the planned 21-story skyscraper is too small for both agencies, so it wants a building in a big new project called Watt Center at 7th and Bixel streets, west of the Harbor Freeway.

Put aside for the moment suspicions that might arise because the project is being built by a politically powerful developer who has contributed thousands of dollars to politicians who sit on the LACTC. On its most basic merits the idea of putting the LACTC on the opposite side of downtown from the RTD doesn’t make sense.

Why buy into an expensive new building when there is already a glut of office space downtown, some of it available at reduced rates?

The LACTC would be even better off staying in its current offices at 7th and Figueroa streets, which sit atop a major subway station. Or maybe even combining with the RTD in the planned high-rise at Union Station. By contrast, the Watt building would be a quarter-mile from the nearest mass transit station.

That’s why the still-organizing MTA board wisely voted last week to review the LACTC’s decision to build. The unanimous MTA vote serves as a much-needed reality check.