MTA Must Face Reality

The board of directors of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority ought to have the following number in mind when they meet today: $513 million. That’s not for new construction. Rather, it’s the amount that the authority will need to make sure that its existing bus and rail systems stay in good operating order. And it’s money that the MTA projects it will not have, which is one of the primary reasons why the board must finally confront reality and agree to temporarily stop work on all but one rail project.

Reality, alas, is something that the MTA and its board have traditionally tried to avoid at all costs. They can do so no longer. Repeatedly, federal transportation officials have rejected the authority’s long-term rail construction plans as wholly unrealistic, if not downright fanciful. As a result, federal funding has been on hold pending the development of an MTA plan that bears some semblance to fiscal reality. Harsh as it may seem, that kind of strict plan has now been put forth by Julian Burke, the corporate turnaround expert hired to put the MTA’s financial house in order.

Interim transit chief Burke is a “crisis management” specialist who has helped accomplish rescues of companies, investment funds and other entities with combined assets of more than $26 billion. The radical surgery he proposes here is a six-to-18-month “breather” for planned rail lines to the Eastside, west to Mid-City and north to Pasadena. Burke says this will allow the MTA to consolidate and focus its resources on the Red Line to North Hollywood, the one that is farthest along and easiest to complete. It would open a rail link to the San Fernando Valley within two years. Work on the $1-billion East Side line has not begun, and the Mid-City line is even farther behind.

To be sure, this is a daring strategy. There will be a clamor to move ahead with the Eastside and Pasadena projects, and it’s unclear whether the area’s state legislators and members of Congress will support the plan. There is also a risk of losing some promised federal funding. Transit officials in other parts of the nation may seek to take advantage by pressing the importance of their own regional projects.

But the goal is proper: to convince federal transit officials that the MTA is prepared to stop, take stock and move forward for the first time with reasonable and accessible programs. If Burke’s stratagem works, it ought to reopen the federal money spigot, rather than risking having it closed for the foreseeable future. The MTA is short $513 million to service its existing bus and rail systems. The board must stop, take stock and move forward for the first time with reasonable and accessible programs.