Don’t Blow Transit Opportunity

There has never been a better time for elected officials and communities to pull together to ease the nation’s worst case of transportation gridlock. Unfortunately, the road signs already point in the wrong direction as local infighting threatens to delay or scuttle plans for better mass transit.

Los Angeles County has transit plans on the books that can benefit from Gov. Gray Davis’ promise to get California moving again: the San Fernando Valley busway along Burbank and Chandler boulevards; light rail or bus routes from Union Station to the Eastside; a bus or light rail line from USC along Exposition Boulevard to Santa Monica, and the Wilshire Boulevard dedicated busway from Vermont Avenue to Beverly Hills.

Start with the Exposition line. It is perhaps L.A. County’s most suitable mass transit route. The right of way is wide and direct, but the project has already been pushed southward by intense opposition from Cheviot Hills and other communities along the route.

The new route, which runs briefly down to Venice Boulevard, will attract other riders. But the fact remains that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, in reaction to neighborhood opposition, launched a study of a longer, more costly route that departs from a right of way it already owns. Will there be more objections and detours to come as this and other projects go through the environmental-impact stage?

Next is the planned Wilshire Boulevard busway, where opposition is even more intense. Neighbors and business owners fear losing street parking and traffic lanes as new articulated express buses are accommodated. And now the Los Angeles City Council has voted 11 to 1 to oppose the Wilshire busway. Why wasn’t this dispute ironed out earlier? Why did the MTA board press ahead on a line with so many detractors?

To the north, across the Santa Monica Mountains, is the Valley Burbank-Chandler line. “We in the Valley . . . lost millions of dollars for transportation projects in the past because of . . . a lack of consensus among residents and community leaders,” state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Los Angeles) complained in a Times commentary. “Our current opportunity cannot be wasted.” Fine. But Alarcon then went on to question the Burbank-Chandler route and pitched for a north-south busway along Van Nuys Boulevard.

The problem lies not in the merits of the arguments but in the fact that the debate tends to be endless, without resolution or compromise. Even with Gov. Davis’ broad initiative, only a fraction of the state’s transportation needs figure to be met. If Los Angeles bogs down in quarrels yet again, you can imagine a long list of California communities saying that they can find ways to make good use of the state’s transit funds if Los Angeles cannot.