What the MTA Needs Most Is Less Council Meddling

Last week’s settlement between the Los Angeles City Council and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority serves as a less than gentle reminder that only in politics can so much be made of so little. The council agreed to free $200 million in city money in exchange for a promise from the transit agency that subway construction across the San Fernando Valley will be pushed up four years to 2007. The catch: No one knows where the money to build the subway will come from and the odds that construction across the Valley will begin in 2007 or 2011 or 2020 remain as slim as ever.

So why bother?

When council members voted earlier this month to withhold $200 million in payments to the MTA, they played squarely to parochial interests by complaining that the Valley was being cheated out of its rightful due. Never mind that the MTA delayed the Valley line as part of a federally ordered recovery plan. Never mind that the Valley’s political and neighborhood leaders have bickered for years over where the line ought to run. Never mind that bumping up construction of the cross-Valley line could jeopardize rail and bus projects in other parts of Los Angeles County--including the Red Line extension into North Hollywood already under construction.

But the showboating council just can’t seem to resist meddling in the affairs of a troubled agency--even though the MTA finally seems to be getting back on track with realistic goals that are within its budget. As commentator William Fulton points out on the facing page, parochial politicians steering the MTA’s gravy train every which way turned the agency into what it is today: a discredited bureaucracy that many believe is impossible to run. More of the same interference is the last thing the MTA needs right now.

With last week’s settlement, the City Council got an empty promise, plain and simple. An empty promise is nothing new to the council, but in this case, it’s worse than useless. It’s dangerous. Federal transportation officials already have raised concerns that some of the agreement’s conditions might be problematic, potentially jeopardizing critical money from Washington.

If the council truly wants to see any kind of regional rail network and improved bus service in Southern California, it needs to butt out for a while and let the MTA get its house in order. Relieving traffic congestion is a regional problem and can be solved only on a regional level. It’s unrealistic to expect a dollar for dollar return in every neighborhood. Yet that seems to be the thinking these days of the Valley’s community leaders and politicians.