A PLAN TO GET L.A.'S FAIR SHARE OFFICIALS TO DISCUSS PARITY IN TRANSIT FUNDS.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

Despite its gridlocked freeways and inadequate mass-transit system, Los Angeles has failed to get its fair share of federal transportation dollars for more than three decades, MTA Chief Roger Snoble said Tuesday.

County businesses and residents pay $1.2 billion a year in gasoline taxes, but get back less than $1 billion in services, and the region needs to form a coalition to go after more funds, Snoble said.

Toward that end, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce are gathering more than 300 elected and community leaders Monday at Mobility 21, a countywide transportation summit designed to build support for a regional lobbying effort.

``We're just not getting a fair share, an adequate share,'' Snoble said during a meeting with Daily News editors and reporters. ``We've been getting the short end of the stick - not just for a short period, for a long time.

``We've been doing it the other way; it hasn't been working. Let's try it a new way.''

Snoble and chamber officials say Los Angeles has long lacked a cohesive agenda that lawmakers and elected officials can use to push for federal and state dollars.

During fiscal 2002, Snoble said, the city of Los Angeles received $20 million in federal funds for new train lines, compared with $70 million for Dallas, and $40 million for San Juan, Puerto Rico, which has a population of less than 500,000.

By contrast, New Jersey-area counties asked for more than $150 million and got $140 million for their populations of 1.5 million.

And 2002 wasn't a fluke. From 1970 to the present, Los Angeles County has collected $218.77 per person in new rail funds, half the $430.75 the Baltimore area counties have collected during that time and well below the $1,273.67 per person pulled in for the Atlanta-area counties.

``There is no L.A. agenda. There's really no coming together around these priorities. It's something we need to try to make happen,'' said Russell J. ``Rusty'' Hammer, president and CEO of the Los Angeles chamber. ``How can we build a coalition of people to press what needs to be done?''

Snoble said there's no magical solution to the region's transportation problems, and the current funding levels won't make a dent in congestion.

By 2025, the county's population of 10 million is expected to increase by 2.7 million. During that period, daily vehicle trips are expected to skyrocket to 27.1 million, average morning peak-hour freeway speeds of 37 mph are expected to drop to 19, while surface streets now crawling along at 25 mph will see traffic grind to 16 mph.

Highway freight truck movement is projected to increase by more than 65 percent.

Land use, freight movement, freeways, streets and public transit all need to be part of the equation for fixing the region's transit woes, Snoble said.

Sessions on those and other topics will be discussed as part of the daylong Mobility 21 conference, drawing federal, state and local elected officials, as well as academics, business leaders, developers and community groups.

With Congress scheduled to vote on federal transportation projects next spring, the goal is to unite the county's 89 cities, various business interests and agencies to lobby for regional projects.

The Automobile Club of Southern California's Dan Beal, a panelist for the conference, said the organization welcomes the effort to keep the light shining on transportation issues.

``We see this as a major effort to bring leadership together. As anybody who's out on the road tries to catch a bus knows ... this is a real problem,'' Beal said.

IF YOU GO

--Mobility 21: L.A. County Moving Together will be held 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Monday at the Wilshire Grand Hotel, 930 Wilshire Blvd. Registration is $125. For information, call [phone] or visit www.mta.net. To register, call lachamber.org/events/calendar.

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IF YOU GO (see text)