Board Backs Plan to End Transit Feud

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday backed a compromise plan aimed at settling a bitter feud between the area’s two major transit agencies and heading off threatened disruption of bus service for hundreds of thousands of riders.

The board, in a 4-1 vote, supported a proposed settlement originally crafted by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and Supervisor Deane Dana and urged Southern California Rapid Transit District directors to do the same when the transit agency takes up the issue this week.

The RTD directors face a showdown vote Thursday after months of public haggling with the county Transportation Commission over the commission’s refusal to release $50 million in funds for the RTD.

Reduce Service

Without those dollars, RTD officials contend that they will be forced to drastically reduce bus service for the district’s 1.4 million daily riders beginning Jan. 2, including curtailing all night, weekend and holiday service. Dana warned Tuesday that the settlement plan is necessary to avert a transportation disaster.

“This is just facing up to reality,” Dana said. “We have to have a compromise, or we are going to have a major bus crisis in this county.”’

The RTD and the Transportation Commission, which long have been at odds over such questions as jurisdiction over the building of the Metro Rail subway, widened their rift after the commission decided to withhold the funds to the transit district. The commission had claimed that the RTD recently negotiated labor agreements that do not meet all of the commission’s cost-cutting guidelines.

Under the plan drafted by Bradley and Dana--and accepted last week by the commission with modifications--the RTD would not have to meet those guidelines to receive the $50 million in frozen funds. In return, however, the release of the money would be contingent on the district allowing a new, privately run bus system to take over some RTD service in the San Gabriel Valley.

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, who joined Dana and fellow Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Pete Schabarum in backing the plan, called the proposal a “just compromise” that would avert a service disruption that would prove particularly harmful to low-income and elderly riders who depend on public transit.

Last week, as part of the plan approved after a raucous public meeting, a majority of the 11-member Transportation Commission agreed that the RTD should operate various rail lines now in the building or planning stage, but that RTD should drop a lawsuit against the commission.

Expressed Doubt

RTD President Gordana Swanson could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but last week, she and other transit directors expressed doubt whether the proposal would be adopted by the transit directors without some changes.

Supervisor Ed Edelman, a staunch RTD ally on the board, cast the lone vote against the compromise, arguing that the commission was unduly pressuring the transit district and the Board of Supervisors to accept the plan.

“Let’s not settle this because we have a gun pointed at our back,” complained Edelman, who accused the commission of “flexing its muscle” and attempting to usurp RTD authority.

Edelman, however, could win no supporters among his fellow supervisors in what was his first major vote as board chairman. Edelman, who succeeded Dana as chairman, sought initially to postpone a vote on the transit plan but was quickly spurned by his colleagues.