DITCHING SUBWAYS WOULD LEAVE CITY WITH NOWHERE TO GO.

Byline: Richard Nemec

METAPHORICALLY speaking, the backers of Proposition A, the Los Angeles County anti-subway ballot measure, seem to be caught in a traffic jam, stuck behind a wide-load tractor-trailer, unable to even imagine the future, let alone see it.

Deaf, dumb and blind best describes the current state of most of our so-called political leaders in this county when it comes to public transportation.

The late Mayor Tom Bradley, no doubt, is looking down at us alternately laughing and crying.

I am not a defender of the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority's shoddy management practices. Nor am I a sky's-the-limit budgeting apologist for rapid transit.

What I am for is the future, and the Los Angeles megalopolis has no future without a full-blown rapid transit system, supplemented by bus, train and shuttle van systems. One of the region's major newspapers in a news article earlier this month concluded in a burst of something less than objective journalism that ``subway defenders are hard to find.'' It is worth noting that in less than a month's time since that pronouncement, rallies have been held in opposition to Proposition A, and a number of leading elected officials have come out strongly voicing their opposition, including county Supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Gloria Molina, and Los Angeles Councilwoman Ruth Galanter.

Thus, at least I am not a fringe group of one for targeting by all the subway-bashers who suddenly seem to have discovered a new invention - the bus

For me, ending subway development because the MTA has mismanaged one of the largest public works projects ever undertaken here is akin to shooting ourselves in the foot.

And that's bad enough for our current generations. But more importantly, we're condemning our great-grandchildren and their children to gridlock.

A more complete regional rapid transit infrastructure - including additional subway tunneling - is a long-term resource that no world-class city can be without. We need look no farther than the century-old systems in Paris and London for confirmation.

I am all for the parts of Proposition A that provide more oversight of the MTA and more assurance it will clean up its administrative act. No one is going to argue for more mismanagement, but let's consider simple cause-effect relationships.

Banning subways because of the MTA's poor performance doesn't make a lot of sense. We haven't banned cross-country flights or train travel because some airlines and railroads have gone bankrupt. Why eliminate a proven way to create a real public transportation network?

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky is simply wrong when he says you can have a rapid transit system with no additional subways. We can have part of a transportation system, the same thing we have had throughout the history of Los Angeles; a ``sort-of'' rapid transit system. Is this progress? Does more of the same make sense?

Just because political leaders and MTA officials are irrational doesn't mean a subway is inherently wrong. Where would Paris, London or Tokyo be today with that kind of thinking. Or San Francisco, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston or New York for that matter.

San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit system was over budget and ridiculed throughout its development. It only serves part of the Bay Area, but without it, San Francisco, the city itself, would be a dying part of the overall Bay Area socioeconomic system that has been dominated in the late 20th century by high-tech companies to the south in Silicone Valley and Oakland's containerization of its port facility to the east.

I'm a firm believer in reforming MTA. Throw all the bums outa there if necessary. But don't ensnarl Southland transportation in a dead-end policy.

No on A is a vote for the future.

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