This article discusses the history of Los Angeles Metro; the regional transportation planning agency for Los Angeles County, California.
Predecessors
Metro is the product of the merger of two previous agencies: the Southern California Rapid Transit District (SCRTD or more often, RTD) and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC). RTD was during the 1960s and 1980s (until the LACTC was created) the "800 pound gorilla" in bus transportation in Southern California. This led to some hostilities and problems with other agencies, as described in the above article on RTD.
Merger and early expansions
The State of California created the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority effective February 1, 1993 per AB152 (Katz). The former SCRTD and LACTC entities went out of business officially on April 1, 1993 after a 60 day cross-over and close out period,Klugman, Mark. Brief Report: L.A.’s Transit Policing Partnership . Spring 1998. Retrieved April 4, 2006 due to the inability of LACTC and SCRTD to cease long-standing feuds. The final straw and most embarrassing example of inter-agency contentious relations was based on a report in the Los Angeles Times on the Blue Line to Downtown Los Angeles (an LACTC project). The newspaper wrote that the line would terminate a mere six blocks (at the Pico Station) from the under construction 7th Street Metro Center subway station (an SCRTD project) preventing a logical ease of connection between the two rail lines. The public was outraged and politicians felt the heat as they too were outraged that the well-known poor relations between the two agencies would result in such a gap in what was supposed to be a regional system. Soon after, then assemblyman Richard Katz authored and was successful in passing legislation to combine the LACTC and SCRTD into the current Metro. The legislation went further to making the new agency more accountable to the public by centralizing policy authority in Metro board's permanent seats, held by the top Los Angeles City and County elected office holders (among them the Mayor of Los Angeles and the entire five-member Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors).
Initially, Metro retained the locations of the predecessor agencies in Downtown Los Angeles, but later moved to the 25-story Metro Headquarters Building adjacent to historic Los Angeles Union Station in 1995 with former SCRTD Operations staff occupying the lower half of the tower and former LACTC staff in Planning and Construction occupying the upper half demonstrating that old hostilities were still present after the merger. In addition, local media reports of expensive Italian marble, granite and limestone used in its construction resulted in the structure being derisively dubbed the Taj Mahal.Simon, Richard. "Urban jewel or height of folly? Lavish new transit center and 26-story office tower next to Union Station will become a civic treasure, MTA officials predict." Los Angeles Times 24 September 1995: 1. Metro officials also pointed out that the funds used for its share of construction costs (it is a Turnkey private real estate development of the BNSF) could only be used for capital improvement or construction and not for operating expenses, subsidy of fares or the purchase of buses or trains. Housed within the building is the Dorothy Peyton Gray Transportation Research Library and Archives, a comprehensive collection of transportation-related books, videos, and other materials, said to be one of the largest in the nation held by a transit operator. The library is open to the public by appointment.
In 1994, the United Transportation Union (UTU), representing bus drivers, went on strike. At stake here were the issues of wages, insurance, and other necessities. This was settled, with operators and maintenance workers receiving a 4% wage increase initially and a 3.5% one for the second year. They also received considerable improvements in health insurance.H-Labor United Transportation On-Line Edition. April 1995. Retrieved April 6, 2006.
Employees of the former Los Angeles County Transportation Commission were transferred in December 1996 to the Public Transportation Services Corporation, an independent corporation. PTSC allows former LACTC employees to participate in CalPERS and opt out of Social Security, and permits Metro planning employees to do planning for other agencies, which Metro currently does for Metrolink. Some union members have argued that PTSC is a "sham corporation" designed eventually to outsource Metro jobs.LA Times
Bus Riders Union agreement When Metro announced plans for a bus fare increase and the elimination of monthly passes, the Bus Riders Union (BRU) with several co-plaintiff organizations filed a federal lawsuit with lawyers supplied by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. They charged that the spending of money on commuter rail to affluent caucasian communities instead of on buses serving lower income communities of color was racist and demanded that more resources go to buses instead of rail projects. The BRU claimed that 50% of rail riders were white compared with 20% of bus riders. It argued that spending on rail projects reduced funding for bus service that disproportionately affected poor and minority riders who were dependent on public transit, and that improvements for the bus system would be more cost effective and require less subsidy than building a rail system.
In 1996, under the direction of then-L.A. mayor Richard Riordan, Metro signed a ten-year consent decree with the BRU to avoid litigation. Riordan would later state that the signing of this consent decree was a mistake.The City Project At the time, the Metro board was led to believe from information provided by Metro staff that load factors could be maintained with existing levels of bus service and without impacting the rail construction timetable; this proved false.
The agreement required an average of fewer than eight standees on a normal 40-seat bus in a 20-minute period during peak hours and a 60-minute period during the off-peak. It also required the Authority to operate special services designed to better connect the poor with important job centers and medical facilities. Provisions of the decree that restricted Metro's ability to raise fares beyond inflation expired January 1, 2004. Donald Bliss, the Special Master overseeing the consent decree, resigned this position in February 2006. No one has been appointed to take his place. The decree expired on October 29, 2006. The BRU made an attempt to extend the decree, but federal judge Terry J. Hatter, Jr. denied this motion on October 25.
Revenue loss In 1998, frustrated with sinkholes, cost overruns, and perceived mismanagement, 65% of Los Angeles County voters approved a ballot measure sponsored by County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky that barred the use of county sales tax money for all future subway projects.
With the passage of the initiative and a lack of confidence from federal and state agencies, Metro brought in Julian Burke, a turn-around expert from the private sector. His goal was to revive Metro's reputation and stabilize its precarious budgetary condition."Burke vows improved LACMTA bus service". UTU Daily Digest News. October 19, 1998. Retrieved April 5, 2006. He recommended suspension of construction on both the Pasadena Blue Line light rail line to Pasadena and an extension of the Red Line to East L.A. Metro also halted planning for future subway extensions. Construction on the Hollywood and North Hollywood extensions of the Red Line continued as these projects were more than 80% complete.Rabin, Jeffrey. "Subway's Arrival in Valley Ends Long, Costly Journey." Los Angeles Times 18 June 2000: A1.
In 2000 the UTU again went on strike, shutting down virtually all rail and bus operations. The issue this time involved transit zones and the fear that many of Metro's routes would be outsourced. A transit zone is a government agency that operates bus service in a given region with contractors not directly employed by their agency, such as Foothill Transit. The argument some politicians made were that transit zones were more cost effective than Metro service, because drivers could be paid reduced wages. In addition, service would be more aligned with community needs since these zones would be smaller than the existing Metro."Striking Los Angeles transit workers defy union officials and continue walkout". White, Jerry and Mendendez, Carlos. World Socialist Web Site. October 5, 2000. Retrieved April 5, 2006. Transit zones were proposed for the San Fernando Valley and western San Gabriel Valley. Ultimately, the formation of any new transit zones was killed off by a state poison pill law, SB1101 (Murray) that requires any new zone to honor existing union contracts, plus 4 additional years at the same terms or better, thus negating any cost savings in labor and making it nearly impossible to meet the cost savings formula required of new transit zones under California PUC 130051 et al.
Concerned about the suspension of the 11% completed Blue Line to Pasadena, Pasadena rail advocates lobbied State Senator Adam Schiff to continue construction. He authored Senate Bill 1847, Chapter 1021. Signed into law in 1998, the bill created the Pasadena Blue Line Construction Authority, an independent authority to complete the suspended light rail line to Pasadena.Pasadena Metro Blue Line Construction Authority. Electric Railway Historical Association of Southern California. Retrieved April 4, 2006. The law went into force on January 1, 1999. Once completed, the authority turned the line over to Metro for operation. The concept was so successful that a similar authority has been established for the Expo Line and the Gold Line extensions.
When it became clear the Pasadena Blue Line would not connect with the Blue Line, as originally planned, the board voted to change the name of the line. Some board members proposed the "Rose Line" in honor of Pasadena's famed annual Tournament of Roses Parade and Rose Bowl game. However, because planned East L.A. extensions of this line would cross communities far from Pasadena, the board renamed it the Gold Line, because California is known as the Golden State, and because of the gold miners in the Pasadena foothills."Los Angeles MTA renames light rail line". UTU Daily News Digest. December 3, 2001. Retrieved April 4, 2006.
In the spring of 2000, ground was rebroken on the stalled Pasadena Blue Line, later renamed the Gold Line.
On June 12, 1999, the extension to Hollywood/Vine was completed. On June 24, 2000, the Red Line reached North Hollywood. Because of the ban on the use of county sales tax for subway construction, and a local ban on the construction of new rail lines in the San Fernando Valley area (which prevented the Orange Line from being built as rail), further extensions of the Red Line are not likely to happen soon. Also in 2000, there was a separate federal ban sponsored by Congressman Henry Waxman, barring the use of federal dollars in the Wilshire Boulevard corridor, which prevented any extensions of the original Red Line route (now branded the Purple Line); this ban was repealed by 2007.
Metro also unveiled the first of 26 planned Metro Rapid bus routes in June, which were Metro Rapid Lines 720 (Wilshire Blvd./Whittier Blvd.) and 750 (Ventura Blvd.).Overview of Transportation Topics. Realtor.org. Retrieved April 4, 2006.