Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Moving to deliver on their promise to create thousands of jobs with proceeds from a voter-approved tax for transportation projects, Los Angeles County officials Thursday approved a sweeping employment program. Officials say it will dramatically increase the number of workers hired from communities near upcoming transit projects expected to cost at least $10 million. Special attention will be given to applicants who live in areas of high unemployment. "We are demonstrating that we are serious about job creation and job opportunity, and jobs that are good-paying jobs with benefits that support families," said county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is also on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board that approved the measure, 11 to 1. The opposing vote came from Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who said he preferred studying a limited system before expanding.

Moving to deliver on their promise to create thousands of jobs with proceeds from a voter-approved tax for transportation projects, Los Angeles County officials Thursday approved a sweeping employment program. Officials say it will dramatically increase the number of workers hired from communities near upcoming transit projects expected to cost at least $10 million. Special attention will be given to applicants who live in areas of high unemployment. "We are demonstrating that we are serious about job creation and job opportunity, and jobs that are good-paying jobs with benefits that support families," said county Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who is also on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board that approved the measure, 11 to 1. The opposing vote came from Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who said he preferred studying a limited system before expanding.

Some transit advocates attend meetings. Others write letters. Some even picket outside subway stations. Numan Parada makes maps. At a time when a subway-to-the-sea along Wilshire Boulevard is still far from a reality, he is plotting it on a map anyway. With the click of a mouse, he puts a notch next to the Getty Center on the rail line he envisions branching off Wilshire Boulevard to follow the 405 Freeway corridor to the San Fernando Valley. "That's a good place for a station," he said.

The sun had not yet risen when the first commuter train in nearly half a century set off from downtown to East Los Angeles, extending a new line of public transportation to some of the city's most underserved neighborhoods. At 3:40 a.m. Sunday the first passengers were train enthusiasts, students and workers for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which built the six-mile Gold Line extension. A few hours later, the neighborhood showed up. More than 50,000 people were estimated to have taken part in a festive day of celebration and free rides.

After serving the entertainment capital of the world for so long, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority now wants to get into show business, too. The MTA's board of directors agreed Thursday to buy a $400,000 portable multimedia theater, once used to showcase television's Power Rangers, to hold free 3-D film screenings across Los Angeles County. But rather than candy-colored teenage superheroes, the stars of this road show will be the MTA's Blue and Gold line trains.

Twice a week, Leonard Feldman, 90 and blind in one eye, takes the No. 218 bus from Studio City over the Hollywood Hills to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to visit his ailing wife. "It's the only way I'm going to get over the hill without making all kinds of transfers," Feldman said while sitting with just one other passenger on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus. But he soon may have to find a new way to the hospital.

Mayor Richard Riordan received the resignation of Airport Commission President Daniel Garcia on Thursday, but he still declined to press embattled City Councilman Richard Alatorre to step down from the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. According to sources close to the mayor and councilman, however, Alatorre has discussed with Riordan the possibility of leaving the agency, which he serves at the mayor's pleasure.

Marvin Diaz quit a $700-a-week job delivering magazines to learn how to drive a public transit bus. He excelled behind the wheel but flunked out of the training program. The native Nicaraguan speaks English but had trouble reading and comprehending the test questions. "It was a little confusing," said Diaz, 38, of Sun Valley.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has launched a hot line for prospective business owners interested in working with the agency. The line enables prospective minority and women business owners to get information about the certification process necessary to work for the agency. The 24-hour number is (213) 244-6333. Messages will receive a response within 48 hours.

A public hearing will take place May 24 on a proposal to more than double some county transit fares over the next two years. Under the plan, the price of the MTA's popular monthly pass, now $52, would increase to $75 in July and $120 by Jan. 1, 2009. The price of the $3 day pass would hit $5 this summer and $8 within two years. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority must approve any fare increase. The hearing is set to begin at 9 a.m.

South Los Angeles has a won a significant victory as transportation officials recommended this week that a proposed transit corridor along Crenshaw Boulevard be a light-rail line rather than a less expensive dedicated busway. The recommendation, made by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority staff, gives a boost to the proposed project estimated at $1.7 billion, which would run from the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw area to just outside Los Angeles International Airport. Officials want to build the project with revenues from Measure R, the transportation sales tax that county voters approved last year.

With a new rail line set to open on the Eastside next month, one of the project's most vocal and enthusiastic backers has few good things to say about it. L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina calls the Eastside Gold Line extension "substandard" and potentially dangerous and says she worries that children leaving school are in danger of being hit by oncoming trains. "I don't know that it's safe. They're telling me that it's safe. . . . Everything has been an excuse. Everything," Molina said.

The Westside L.A. subway expansion and a plan to build a light-rail link through downtown L.A. took a small step closer to reality this week when the MTA board agreed to submit the projects for federal funding. Officials for years have been planning a subway that would run from Koreatown to Santa Monica, probably along Wilshire Boulevard. The project, with an estimated price tag of $5 billion or more, is considered a top priority of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The "regional connector" in downtown L.A. would link the Blue and Gold rail lines and offer rail service through the city center.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority board awarded a contract Thursday to the Italian firm AnsaldoBreda for 100 additional light-rail cars, clearing the way for a new rail manufacturing plant that the company has promised to build with union labor in downtown Los Angeles. The decision was a victory for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who said the manufacturing plant would be a catalyst for his plan to attract clean technology companies to a four-mile industrial corridor along the Los Angeles River.

With more than 100 light-rail cars needed to expand lines around Los Angeles County, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's chief executive has recommended -- for the third time -- that the agency's board seek new competitive bids to build the cars and refurbish others in the fleet. In a memo this week, Art Leahy advised board members to reject contract options with Italian rail firm AnsaldoBreda, which is manufacturing 50 cars for the MTA under its base contract and has options to build 100 more cars.

For years, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has wanted a seamless fare system that would allow transit riders to use the same pass to board buses and trains from different lines across Los Angeles County. But a decade after the MTA began its effort to replace paper tickets with smart cards, the project has almost doubled in price and is still not finished. A new audit done for the agency by KPMG reveals that the cost of the Transit Access Pass program has risen from $78.5 million to $154 million since 1998 and that the deadline for completing the system has been extended from an initial estimate of three years to more than 10. The KPMG report, released late last week, also concluded that the project lacks oversight, is understaffed by the MTA and has no plan detailing when the project will be finished or how much it will cost.

The trial of a historic lawsuit accusing the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority of discriminating against low income and minority bus riders was postponed until Oct. 8 in the hopes that the parties can settle their dispute by mediation. U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. Monday ordered both sides to return to court in two weeks with the name of a mediator they agree on or with up to five names from which he will select a mediator.

Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach) has been named chairwoman of the Assembly Select Committee on the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, officials said Monday. The committee was formed by Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) to evaluate the efficiency of the MTA, Oropeza said. The committee will investigate all aspects of the agency, "from the scope of responsibility to the governance structure," she added.

It was to be a little aesthetic touch added to the Eastside extension of the Gold Line as it neared completion. But no one imagined what gremlins would be unleashed when workers added a layer of paint to the concrete at "cross-over" points where the light-rail trains could switch tracks. The coloring agent was made of iron oxide. And at intersections like 1st and Clarence streets in Boyle Heights it caused the painted concrete to conduct an electrical circuit that basically told a lie. "It was sending out a false signal that the train was there," said Dennis Mori, the Gold Line Eastside extension's project manager.

Citing poor on-time performance, overcrowding and a shortage of service, several thousand transit riders gave low marks to the bus system run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, according to a survey released Friday. "The MTA got a D for the overall quality of its bus service," said Esperanza Martinez, an organizer for the Bus Riders Union, an advocacy group that conducted the survey. "People are paying way too much and waiting way too long for a bus that will likely pass them by."