PUBLIC FORUM : READERS OFFER THEIR VIEWS ON WHAT AILS THE MTA.How many remember when the Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County Transportation Commission started off with a two-person staff in a small suite of offices in a state building in downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The sprawling, multi-centered megacity is such that its downtown core is often considered just another district like Hollywood or ? It has since grown into a 9,000-person bureaucracy after having swallowed up the Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, Rapid Transit rapid transit, transportation system designed to allow passenger travel within or throughout an urban area, usually employing surface, elevated, or underground railway systems or some combination of these. District, changed its name to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and established its own police force. A few years ago, with taxpayer money to burn, the staff proposed and the board approved a $140 billion, 30-year plan to build a rail transit system, a monument second to none in the world. However, this grandiose plan would provide little congestion The condition of a network when there is not enough bandwidth to support the current traffic load. congestion - When the offered load of a data communication path exceeds the capacity. relief, since it was projected to increase transit usage by only 1 percent. Primary transportation demand would have continued for rubber-tired vehicles utilizing freeways, high-occupancy lanes and surface streets and arterials. The plan has since been scaled back to 20 years and $60 billion to $80 billion, depending on federal dollars available. And of course it still abounds in pet projects and monuments to board members such as Richard Alatorre's ``Blue Line'' to Pasadena, which will serve few but at an astronomical cost with money diverted from bus and freeway needs. In the meantime Adv. 1. in the meantime - during the intervening time; "meanwhile I will not think about the problem"; "meantime he was attentive to his other interests"; "in the meantime the police were notified" meantime, meanwhile , bus service has suffered and it took a court to get the MTA's attention. Compare the MTA (1) (Message Transfer Agent or Mail Transfer Agent) The store and forward part of a messaging system. See messaging system. (2) See M Technology Association. 1. (messaging) MTA - Message Transfer Agent. with the Orange County Transportation Authority The Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) is the public sector transportation planning body and transit service provider for Orange County, California. Its ancestor agencies include not only the prior Orange County Transit District but also such diverse entities as . With a minuscule professional staff, a very small board and heavily utilizing existing public agency staffs, amazing accomplishments have been achieved. Shuffling the deck chairs at the MTA again, as suggested in the Daily News' Dec. 6 editorial (``Musical chairs at the MTA''), will not be successful. The 13 elected ``egomaniacs'' on the board have proved that they can't agree on much; lack, with a few exceptions, transportation expertise; and insist on micromanaging the MTA. They have proved that they cannot put the good of the region above their own pet interests. It is time to fire them all and have a small, professionally competent board with no elected officials. Secure a professionally competent staff while significantly downsizing (1) Converting mainframe and mini-based systems to client/server LANs. (2) To reduce equipment and associated costs by switching to a less-expensive system. (jargon) downsizing the MTA. Utilize the expertise of existing public agencies that have a scandal-free track record of professional competence and accomplishment such as Caltrans. Focus on a flexible, cost-effective transit system, building on buses and HOV lanes, and constructing rail only where it makes transportation sense. - Robert Walton Sylmar The MTA was formed to consolidate power over transportation in Los Angeles County and to have that power in the politicians' hands. It was formed not for the benefit of the public, but to give the politicians control over the money to spend as they wanted. What the politicians wanted was to expedite plans to build railroads and subways to help consultants, engineers, lobbyists, public relations public relations, activities and policies used to create public interest in a person, idea, product, institution, or business establishment. By its nature, public relations is devoted to serving particular interests by presenting them to the public in the most people, real estate interests, contractors, etc. Now is the time to stop the subway and use our money for a responsible bus system. Stop the waste of building, building and building to make those involved in the building rich and bankrupt the rest of us. Who is going to ride the rails and subways in earthquake country when they and their families could be picked up at their own door and go wherever they wanted to go? If we stop now we will be able to start implementing the bus system now. - Dorothy Peacock Glendale Los Angeles, unlike such cities as New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of and London, does not have the benefit of a large, existing subway system built many decades ago. Let us be fair in what we expect of the MTA in comparison to other cities' public transit systems. - Lawrence Fafarman Los Angeles I remember San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden in the 1960s when Market Street was an open trench and the public cried out that Bay Area Rapid Transit “BART” redirects here. For other uses of "BART" or "Bart", see Bart. The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) is a heavy rail public rapid-transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area. was destroying San Francisco. The board of directors was under incredible pressure to cut back the size of the project and look for cheaper but decidedly lower-quality options. The directors did not compromise. They bit the bullet, took the delays, but were relentless in continuing to search for funding and would not stop until the full 70-mile system, which included 20 miles of subway, was finished. Today, the quarter-million daily BART riders who can travel seamlessly from Richmond or Concord all the way to Daly City Daly City, city (1990 pop. 92,311), San Mateo co., W Calif., a suburb of San Francisco; inc. 1911. Daly City is primarily residential, its population having grown significantly since the 1970s. without transferring owe a debt of gratitude to the tenacity of the transit board. Metro Rail is here today, carrying passengers extremely efficiently, with a remarkably healthy ridership, considering only the earliest segments have opened. When the Red Line opens in North Hollywood and the Blue in Pasadena, our ridership will surpass today's BART ridership. The day will come when Southern Californians can travel from East L.A. or the West Valley rapidly and without transfers. Don't compromise, MTA. In 2010, more buses won't cut it. Keep your eye on the prize. - Roger Christensen Sherman Oaks It would be much easier, and take less space, to detail what is right with the MTA. But since today's format is to list what ails the MTA, let's start with: It is a dysfunctional, overpoliticized organization, even for Los Angeles. It is micromanaged, at every level, to the point of incompetency The lack of ability, knowledge, legal qualification, or fitness to discharge a required duty or professional obligation. The term incompetency has several meanings in the law. . It is an organization created to serve the general public, yet it only serves special interests. It is financially irresponsible, with a total lack of fiscal review. It didn't recognize that it had a true leader in Franklin White (the prior chief executive officer). I have only scratched the surface of the problems that currently plague the MTA. It is unlikely that this organization will ever attain success, given the current political climate. - Don Schultz President Van Nuys Homeowners Association What ails the MTA? Everything. But the major ailment ail·ment n. A physical or mental disorder, especially a mild illness. is politics. The agency is totally under the cloak and interests of the mayor, City Council, committees, etc. The MTA itself is wrought with fraud, lack of leadership and engineering, quality control, ridiculous retirement monies to bad leaders, etc. It is, in other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , a mess. My solution is to privatize. As a commercial business, the management would be on its own, responsible for converting the MTA into a profitable entity with efficient, practical routing, maybe no subway and definitely a better organization. This would then put them out from under the politicians and their demands, but most importantly, out from under our tax burden, years of subsidies and more. - Charles Dusheck Chatsworth As a project management consultant with 15 years' experience, I can draw only one conclusion: It is a never-ending soap opera. Specifically, it would appear that no clear lines of communications are present; that the procurement-evaluation process is in need of revamping; and there is a need for an effective individual with strong leadership and communications skills. My suggestion to MTA board members is to find someone with the reliability, aggressiveness and audacity of Gen. George S. Patton “George Patton” redirects here. For the 19th century Scottish jurist and politician, see George Patton, Lord Glenalmond. George Smith Patton Jr. GCB, KBE (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a leading U.S. Jr. and the wisdom of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis Kenesaw Mountain Landis (November 20 1866 – November 25 1944) was an American jurist who served as a federal judge from 1905 to 1922, and subsequently as the first commissioner of Major League Baseball. (the first baseball commissioner), and invest him with the powers to get the job done right the first time. If the MTA chooses this course of action, it will avoid the same pitfalls that have plagued shared-governance projects in the past. I can say with confidence that if the Army Corps of Engineers or Navy Seabees were responsible for these projects, they would be well-organized and ahead of schedule. - Steven Jay Moshlak Tarzana The first problem was merging the RTD RTD returned to duty (US DoD) RTD Rated RTD Ready to Drink RTD Richmond Times-Dispatch RTD Regional Transportation District RTD Research, Technological Development RTD Research and Technology Development RTD Real-Time Data and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission to create the MTA. That was trying to put oil and water together. Both organizations were too higPh on their own egos. The last thing they have on their minds is the riding public. The solution should be first of all to take the politicians out of the circle. Since 1959 to date, transit agencies have tried to go from red car to bus back to red car, and this has been an abysmal failure. I can vouch for all of this as I have 31 years' experience working as a bus operator for the RTD and the MTA. - Edward Elks Panorama City What's wrong with the MTA (Metropolitan Tunneling Abyss)? It has its priorities upside down. Check out its homepage on the Internet. It has all types of information about the MTA board, vendor info, job info and lots of press releases but not a schedule in sight! It seems to me that the first priority of an MTA web page should be to inform the MTA riders. If this is an example of the MTA's ``customer first'' campaign, we're in trouble. The MTA also should take a look a few miles down the I-5 Freeway to Disneyland and its monorail monorail, railway system that uses cars that run on a single rail. Typically the rail is run overhead and the cars are either suspended from it or run above it. system. Maybe the ``Mickey Mouse'' MTA could learn something. A monorail would be far cheaper to build and maintain than a subway, especially in our seismically active area. - Bob Plass Chatsworth `It is time to do a reality check' The MTA is more than just the headline of the day. Perhaps, in the midst Adv. 1. in the midst - the middle or central part or point; "in the midst of the forest"; "could he walk out in the midst of his piece?" midmost of the current heated environment, it is time to do a reality check and view the MTA again from a rational perspective. On Sunday we will add 53 buses to the bus fleet, the largest single-day expansion in 20 years, to reduce overcrowding overcrowding overcrowding of animal accommodation. Many countries now publish codes of practice which define what the appropriate volumetric allowances should be for each species of animal when they are housed indoors. Breaches of these codes is overcrowding. , with plans to add 51 more by next June. The ridership on the Metro rail lines has steadily increased to nearly 100,000 passengers a day. Only six cities in the United States carry more passengers on rail than Los Angeles. It makes no sense to reduce the complex transportation needs of this county to a bus-vs.-rail debate. Our passengers are willing to leave their cars for any viable alternative. We are trying to offer to meet their needs: bus, rail, approxPimately 100 car pool lanes, 400 miles of MTA-funded bicycle lanes. We are looking to the future to reduce the likelihood of a gridlocked grid·lock n. 1. A traffic jam in which no vehicular movement is possible, especially one caused by the blockage of key intersections within a grid of streets. 2. , polluted environment that will affect not only our population, but commerce and the future growth and tax base of the county. The MTA is the world leader in developing and using environment-friendly technology. The ATTB ATTB Ass to the Blast bus, the lightweight vehicle now in testing that uses material similar to the stealth plane, promises a bus fleet that could go a long way in reducing pollution. We have a system that is working very well. We should recognize that and support it. - Larry Zarian Chairman Metropolitan Transportation Authority CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Busted dreams: With Joseph Drew's departure as the most recent in a string of MTA setbacks, the question may be what's not wrong at the agency. |
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