Zev Yaroslavsky On MTA's Challenge:Transportation Planning Without Dollars

Given current fiscal constraints, how viable are MTA's present and future plans for needed transportation improvements in Los Angeles County?

Well, the fiscal constraints are significant, but I don't believe they're permanent, and there are things we've tried to do in the interim to compensate. The Orange Line under construction in the San Fernando Valley will open by the end of this year. It's been funded largely with local money, which the state is committed to paying back once its fortunes turn around. The MTA is scheduled to consider the first phase of the Exposition light rail line at its next meeting. This first phase, the line from downtown to Robertson Boulevard, will be funded with local money. The second phase will be from Culver City to Santa Monica, and, hopefully, there will be other funding sources when we're ready undertake the second phase. The Gold Line extension through the Eastside is moving forward. So, there are three major transportation projects moving forward, two without federal funding and the Gold Line with federal funds. The MTA is trying to keep the momentum going while other things shake down in Washington and Sacramento. Hopefully, fortunes will turn around with new federal appropriations and improving state fiscal fortunes. We'll be in a position to tap those resources without having lost an inordinate amount of time in the interim.

Is it possible that Prop. 42 funds would be made available to the region this year or next?

At some point the state is going to have to re-engage the statewide transportation infrastructure needs; they can't go an entire generation without fiscally engaging. I can't predict how or when this is going to happen, but traffic has emerged as the number one issue among people, certainly in Southern California. This is a democracy, and the officials at the state and local levels are going to have to respond to people's concerns about traffic. I think that despite all of its faults the MTA has done a remarkable job keeping transportation projects alive -- not just alive, but actually building them -- and when the spigots reopen out of Washington and Sacramento, I think we're going to be able to accelerate this momentum. Given what we're doing largely on our own, with the exception of the Eastside Gold Line, which is federally funded, imagine what we could do with state and federal funding. We could build more than one project or two projects at a time and start to make an impact for the long-term in this region.

What would you say to L.A.'s mayoral candidates and voters about the importance of a proactive transportation agenda for the city/region?

I think the voters understand our transportation needs better than the candidates and better than those of us who are in office, frankly. Every Angelino is an expert on traffic and transportation. If they're not experts on anything else, they're experts on that. I think the next mayor, whoever it is, will have more tools than Tom Bradley had in 1973 when he became mayor. Back then there was no LA County transportation commission. There was just an RTD. He largely did what he did with the bully pulpit, and he willed transportation to a high place on the regional agenda. The new mayor will instantly have a very influential role with our regional transit agency, the MTA. He will have the bully pulpit and he will have the people behind him to think big and to do both short-term and long-term improvements. There's the will now to do things that ten years ago nobody would have dreamed of doing, because the situation has become so serious. The new mayor will probably have an opportunity that no other mayor has had. The one piece of advice that I would give, not just to the mayor but also to all of us who are in decision-making roles, is to be less parochial. I have certainly done my share of parochial decision-making, and I had my share of regional decision-making. It is incumbent upon us now to be regional and long-term in our thinking, while we do the short-term fixes that we do every day. But regional, long-term, macro-perspective thinking is what's called for. I would encourage all of us to move swiftly in that direction.

Is it possible to pass a half-cent sales tax for transportation improvements at the regional level? Is it needed? What are the trade-offs, i.e. funding for more police?

Well, first of all, as long as there's a two-thirds voting requirement for a half-cent sales tax for transportation, I think it's going to be very difficult to pass. Senator Murray's bill authorized the MTA to put a half-cent sales tax on the ballot to fund specific projects, including the extension of the subway to Fairfax, Exposition Light Rail, the San Fernando Valley project, the I-5 Santa Ana Freeway corridor, and the extension of the Gold Line to Irwindale. Those are the kinds of things that were in his bill. There were public opinion surveys done testing whether it could get two-thirds approval; it barely got to 50 percent. If you remember, a bare majority approved Proposition A and Proposition C, the two half-cent transit sales taxes that were passed years ago. So, for whatever reason, the half-cent sales tax for transit is going to have a hard time getting to two-thirds voter approval. If there were ever a modification to the state constitution that would allow a lower threshold, a 55 percent threshold, it would be within reach. I do believe that the Murray bill was the right approach. It authorized the building of specific projects. The people could see which projects were being built, and that the money wouldn't be siphoned off for other things.

Regarding funding for police, as it turns out, the cities of the county and the county itself are doing much better financially at the moment. We are the beneficiaries of a robust real estate economy. Sales taxes are up. Property tax revenues are up, and in the county of Los Angeles, we have husbanded our resources very well. We're in a better position than we have been in the ten years that I've been on the board, and I think it's a tribute to a solid fiscal policy that was not in place when I got here in 1995. I think all the members of the board have paid a political price for this, but, having lived within our means and having tightened our belts, we are in a position to do things. We will hire more sheriffs this year. We will reopen some of our jails this fiscal year and next.

The City of Los Angeles is going to have more money than it anticipated to hire police officers and they won't need to raise the sales tax. There are other options for hiring more police and for providing other municipal services. To build a regional transportation infrastructure, however, requires billions of dollars. Billions are not available, so we'll see. Education bond measures were given a 55 percent threshold. I think transportation measures should be considered for that kind of threshold. I think the people in Southern California might support it.

L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge recently led the effort to revive plans for extending the Red Line to the ocean. Is his ambition transportation agenda practical given MTA's fiscal constraints?

I think the subway to the ocean has been a very long-term dream, and the Wilshire corridor is probably the single-most eligible corridor for a subway other than downtown and Hollywood, which already have subway lines. In order to build it, you're going to have to raise a considerable amount of money. You're talking $300 million or more per mile. That means that just to get from Western Avenue to Fairfax, you're talking $1 billion. To get from Fairfax to Robertson is another billion dollars. To get from Robertson to the Beverly Hilton Hotel is another billion dollars. And this is without considering inflation. So, to get to the ocean, which I think is less important than getting to the 405, you're talking many billions of dollars. It will require federal funds, which are not currently available. It will require significant local matching funds, which are not available. Whatever local money we have available, we're putting into the Orange Line, and the Exposition Line. If at some point the federal prohibition on tunneling in the Wilshire corridor is lifted, if the spigot is turned on again at the federal level for these kinds of projects, and if we can get a local match of any significance, then we can undertake such a project.

To be realistic, you're going to have to build it in pieces: building the Redline extension from Wilshire to Fairfax, as the Murray bill suggested, is the next logical manageable piece, and then we'll go from there. I think it's a worthy project. I support doing that. Everybody wants a subway -- the valley, the Eastside, South LA and the Westside -- but there was really no one asking, "Where is a subway warranted and where can we provide the quality and quantity of service needed with a far less expensive alternative?" I think Councilman LaBonge has asked that question. That is the exercise that the board of the MTA has asked its staff to undertake, to find out where it makes sense to build underground. We are building two miles of underground rail for the Gold Line to the Eastside because that's the only way you can get through Boyle Heights without destroying it, and that is perfectly legitimate. However, you can't build underground all the way to Atlantic Boulevard as originally planned; it just doesn't make sense. You can't build underground from North Hollywood to Warner Center; it simply doesn't make sense given the costs.

Lastly, do you believe L.A. County needs an elected executive. This reform has been advanced two or three times in the past, and while all of the pundits thought it was an excellent governance reform, it has repeatedly failed at the polls. What, if anything, has changed?

The last the elected executive issue was put on the ballot was in the early 90s, before I was on the board. It got 45 percent of the vote, but it was linked to an expansion of the board of supervisors, which got beaten with only 33 percent voter approval. I believe that the people would vote for a county executive, an elected county executive, as a stand-alone measure, not linked to any expansion of the board. People do not want to create more politicians and more political jobs. The county executive position that I am proposing would not be an added position; it would replace the county administrative officer. Creating an elected county executive or administrator, voted on by the people and accountable to all the people of the county, would empower a less parochial individual who would be responsible for the interests of the county at large.

Currently the county bureaucracy does not have one boss; it has five bosses and that makes all the difference in the world. If you work for an organization, you want to know what your boss expects of you and to whom you are accountable. If you're accountable to five people, some of whom have diametrically opposed views, it is a prescription for gridlock.

The reaction to my views on this subject has been remarkable. People who deal with the county, people who deal with governance and political structures say that it's long overdue, and ask what they can do to help. These are some of the most influential people in the business community and the political community, who understand the problems that are created for the county by a lack of effective governance.

King/Drew Hospital is a classic example of how a situation goes into a tailspin without anyone doing anything particularly egregious at the board level or at the Department of Health Services. Nobody did anything, and doing nothing became the default mode. I can understand why the Health Director would have a problem understanding what he's supposed to do with one supervisor saying one thing and another saying the something else, and the third, fourth and fifth supervisors having different opinions. You would just live to get through Tuesday's board meetings and then do the best you could Wednesday through Monday. That's a horrible way to run an organization. This is an $18 billion organization with 90,000 employees. No organization of this size is run by a five-member board. General Electric isn't run by a five-member executive. General Motors has one person in charge. The State of California has a governor in charge. And what I propose is to have an elected executive in charge for LA County. I remind you that under the law, the board cannot act unless it's in an official session. The board meets once a week. It took us a week and a half to declare a disaster during the recent rains. That wasn't terrible, but imagine if we had had a more critical situation that couldn't wait a week and a half.

An elected executive is the single most important reform we could make in Los Angeles County government. Since I've been here in 1994, the single biggest drawback that I have noticed to the way the county operates is the lack of an elected executive. I saw it almost immediately when I got here, and it's only been validated in my mind every year since. What caused me to advance the idea now? It is the King/Drew situation. That is the straw that broke the camel's back; we're talking about putting it on the ballot next year and there will be a lot of public discussion, a lot of public input on it. I'm going to recruit political scientists, and people with county government experience to craft an intelligent reform package that the people could support.