Voters Force a Detour for MTA Subway Builders

So, where and how does Los Angeles go from here on mass transit?

County voters have overwhelmingly said “No” to spending any more local sales tax on new subway construction. They told the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to find other ways to provide mass transit in this sprawling region.

But what will that transit future look like?

A new study commissioned by the MTA provides something of a road map. Although it is by no means a complete set of choices, the report shows conclusively that the least expensive new transit project is busways. Light-rail lines can also be built for significantly less than short extensions of expensive subway lines.

But despite the fact that voters have resoundingly taken sales tax revenues out of the subway funding equation, the MTA study also proposes lower-cost methods of extending the system into the Eastside and Mid-City.

For example, after spending more than $130 million to plan, design and buy property for a circuitous subway route to the Eastside, the agency’s consultants have come to the conclusion that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line after all.

Thus, the study says that building a subway extension directly from Union Station to Boyle Heights would be cheaper and faster than the grinding, roundabout route through Little Tokyo that the MTA has been pursuing for years. And rather than the curving subway line now planned for the Mid-City area, the study resurrects the old idea of extending the Metro Rail out Wilshire Boulevard as far west as Fairfax Avenue.

The study does not attempt to answer the question of how the MTA could possibly pay for these subway extensions without using the county’s 1% transit sales tax.

In fact, MTA chief executive Julian Burke said the agency has to make sure it complies with the restrictions imposed by the voters. “We have to be careful while we are doing these studies and we will be,” he said.

Thus the study’s most interesting mass transit proposals involve projects above ground:

There is the option of building a light-rail line or a busway from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles along the abandoned Exposition Boulevard railroad right of way that runs from the beach city to USC south of downtown.

And in the San Fernando Valley, there is the possibility of putting a light-rail line or a busway on an old railroad route from North Hollywood to Warner Center in Woodland Hills.

The MTA already owns those two railroad rights of way, but persistent neighborhood objections to both projects are political obstacles.

Point of Departure for Discussions

The thick study by the consulting firm Booz-Allen & Hamilton was meant as a starting point for a discussion of ways to provide mass transit. The agency does not regard it as a final menu of choices.

Burke said more planning, community discussions, and environmental and engineering work must be done before any decisions on an actual project are made. “It’s been a long time since those communities had an opportunity to look at what these alternatives are,” he said.

Ultimately, the transit choice rests with the MTA board of directors, a group that is as fractured as the fault lines that underlie the region.

The 13-member board remains deeply split along racial, ethnic, geographic and political lines, making a coherent and rational approach to mass transit all the more difficult.

In the final days before the Nov. 3 election, the pro- and anti-subway forces on the MTA board exchanged potshots about the impact of the ballot measure that outlaws use of the sales tax for new subways.

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, chairman of the MTA board, struggled to maintain order. “This sounds like Bosnia!” he shouted at one point.

In a raucous evening meeting six days after the election, board member was pitted against board member and district against district over which transit projects would take priority in the years ahead.

At stake in this competition are--as they have been since the agency’s creation--hundreds of millions of dollars in transportation funds and control over the spigot of contracts and jobs.

At the post-election meeting, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre and county Supervisors Gloria Molina and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke defeated an effort by Riordan and MTA chief Burke to reserve funds for a new system of rapid buses and a Valley transit project.

Supervisor Burke, who is vice chairwoman of the MTA board, was adamant that the agency must reserve $220 million for a transit project on the Eastside or in the Mid-City area.

The author of the anti-subway ballot measure, Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, pointedly told his colleagues not to expect to build more subways. “If the agenda is to keep subway alive,” he said, “it ain’t going to happen.”

Riordan was incensed at the outcome. “We have cheated the transit-dependent,” he said. “Somewhere in the immediate future, we have to have the guts to take big steps to dramatically improve the bus system in this county.”

The mayor said later that the $220 million would not buy half a mile of subway on the Eastside or even half a mile in Mid-City. For the same money, he said, the MTA could expand its bus fleet by 600 buses. “Los Angeles needs a meaningful system now,” Riordan said, “not in 10 years.”

Faced with a federal court order requiring reductions in overcrowding and improvements in bus service, the MTA board last month authorized the purchase of 2,095 buses to replace its crippled fleet over the next six years. And this month, the board also endorsed the purchase of sophisticated equipment to accelerate the movement of its buses.

Financial Problems Halted Rail Projects

The study of regional transit alternatives began after the board voted in January to halt work on rail projects to the Eastside, Mid-City, Valley and Pasadena.

The hiatus was sparked by the agency’s financial difficulties. It provided an opportunity to reexamine transit choices in each area.

Since then, the Legislature has created a transit agency to design and build a light-rail project from Union Station to Pasadena instead of the MTA.

And while the MTA’s consultants were evaluating subway extensions, light-rail lines and exclusive busways, Congress passed an unprecedentedly huge highway and transit funding measure that will provide a major infusion of new money for projects in Los Angeles.

The study makes it clear that busways are the least expensive way to provide new transit facilities. The cost of a busway at ground level is estimated at $12.4 million to $14.9 million a mile.

Light-rail costs range from $51.7 million to $81.6 million a mile. In both cases, the consultants said the final cost could rise when specific measures to ease the impact on neighborhoods are included.

The study estimates that the MTA can build subway extensions at a cost of $237.3 million to $271.2 million a mile. A Valley subway line--all but impossible without the sales tax monies--was priced at $153.1 million a mile.

All of the figures are based on MTA costs in 1998 dollars, although none of the projects can be completed for years. Other cost estimates assume that the agency, notorious for its cost overruns, nonetheless can achieve construction savings.

The study examines two subway options for the Eastside. The estimated cost of the original 3.2-mile route from Union Station to Little Tokyo and then on to Boyle Heights was estimated at $922.6 million.

But the consultants also considered a 1.9-mile straight shot subway from Union Station to Boyle Heights that drops two stations and eliminates the sweeping curves that would cause extensive wear to tracks and trains. The cost of the shorter segment was put at $481.1 million. In both cases, the actual length of the subway segment is longer when turnaround areas not accessible to the public are included.

After the enormous capital investment, ridership on the Eastside subway segments was projected at 6,100 to 10,400 riders a day.

The study found that a longer, 5.9-mile busway or light-rail line running from Union Station to the Eastside via Little Tokyo would have significantly higher ridership than the subway. The price tag was placed at $88.2 million for the busway and $430.9 million for light rail.

But the busway and light-rail alternatives have their own drawbacks: They must share their routes with other traffic, pass through residential neighborhoods and are slower than subways. The cost also could rise once mitigation measures are considered.

The shorter subway line could take almost six years to build; a busway more than seven years and a light-rail line more than eight years.

Therefore, even Molina said the MTA needs to examine alternatives to the subway on the transit-dependent Eastside. The subway should be “one of the options, but is not the only option available,” she said.

“We want real alternatives to be analyzed,” she said.

Consultant Studies Further Options

To broaden the debate, Molina had her own consultant prepare a report that contains an array of light-rail and bus routes along different corridors not considered by the MTA’s consultants. Whatever is decided, Molina said the Eastside must be part of a regional mass transit system. “We don’t want to be left out.”

In the Mid-City area, only subway extensions were studied by the MTA. The project from Wilshire and Western to Pico and San Vicente boulevards now on the drawing board would cover 2.2 miles and cost $607.4 million.

As an alternative, the consultants examined a 3.2-mile subway extension directly west under Wilshire as far as Fairfax. That route would have a higher ridership and a higher cost at $859.7 million.

It also would require repeal of a federal ban on subway construction farther west along Wilshire that was imposed at the insistence of Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) after a 1985 methane gas explosion and fire in the Fairfax district.

“If everything could be worked out, that would be a good alternative,” Supervisor Burke said. “Wilshire has the highest density and the highest ridership.”

Burke said she would like to see a subway extend as far as Crenshaw Boulevard and raised the politically charged possibility of considering an aerial line beyond that.

The Mid-City subway could take nearly eight years to finish and the Wilshire line as much as nine years--assuming, as seems unlikely, that state and federal funds could be secured.

For the Westside, the study examined a 18.5-mile busway from downtown Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles via the Exposition Boulevard right of way. The cost was pegged at $264.3 million.

A light-rail line following the same basic route would cost more than three times as much--$930.8 million--but would have slightly higher ridership. It would link up with the Los Angeles to Long Beach Blue Line on the edge of downtown.

A Westside busway built with state and local money would take almost seven years to finish, and a light-rail line would take about eight years. Qualifying the projects for federal funds would add six more months.

Supervisor Burke said “a busway would be excellent on Exposition” but not a light-rail line.

Both choices would face potent political opposition from Westside homeowners unwilling to have a transit line and its riders rumbling through their neighborhood.

The options and obstacles are the same in the Valley, where a 13.8-mile busway from the future Metro Rail subway station in North Hollywood to Woodland Hills would cost $173 million.

That is a fraction of the $1.1-billion price for a light-rail line. A busway could be completed in about five years; a light-rail line could take almost seven years.

Riordan said he wants to see a high-speed busway across the Valley. “You can build 15 miles of it for 10% to 15% of the cost of building a subway,” he said.

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MTA Takes a New Track

Los Angeles County voters overwhelmingly said no to spending local sales tax for new subways. Now the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is examining other less costly approaches to provide mass transit, including construction of light-rail lines or busways to the Eastside, Westside and across the San Fernando Valley. Despite the anti-subway vote, the MTA is still considering plans to expand the subway system to the Eastside and Mid-City. No final decisions on the various alternatives have been made.

Eastside: Light rail or bus transitway

Westside: Light rail or bus transitway

Valley: Light rail or bus transitway

Subway Extensions: Eastside subway options; Mid-city subway options; Existing subway

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Sources: Metropolitan Transportation Authority,

Booz-Allen & Hamilton consultants

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Avenues to Mass Transit

A study of transit options for the Eastside, Westside and San Fernando Valley shows that subways are the most expensive to build. Light rail offers a less expensive form of rail transit. Busways are the least expensive alternative.

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Cost per mile* Distance in miles Ridership** Eastside Busway $14.9 million 5.9 miles 11,400 Light Rail $73.0 million 5.9 miles 11,500 Alternate Subway $250.6 million 1.9 miles 6,100 Original Subway $254.9 million 3.2 miles 10,400

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Cost per mile* Distance in miles Ridership** Westside Exposition Busway $14.3 million 18.5 miles 33,400 Exposition Light Rail $51.7 million 18 miles 36,600 Mid-City Subway $237.3 million 2.2 miles 16,300 Wilshire Subway $271.2 million 3 miles 21,600

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Cost per mile* Distance in miles Ridership** San Fernando Valley Busway $12.4 million 13.8 miles 16,100 Light Rail $81.6 million 13.8 miles 23,400 Subway $153.1 million 5.6 miles 15,900

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* Preliminary MTA cost estimate is rounded off and is in 1998 dollars. The cost per mile figures are based on the full length of the subway extensions, including turnaround areas not accessible to passengers.

** Projected ridership

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Source: Metropolitan Transportation Authority