Transit Officials

Los Angeles' transportation department has identified a $42.6-million accumulation of cash that should have been paid to the city's general fund over a 17-year period, officials said Wednesday. The money was allocated by city officials over the years to help fund costs of various projects. It should have been returned as federal, state and other grants arrived, according to Department of Transportation General Manager Jaime de la Vega. But from 1995 to 2011, the funds were only returned to the city's general fund twice, according to a City Council memo.

The first comprehensive analysis of Los Angeles County's experimental toll lanes indicates the pay-to-drive routes made some rush-hour commutes faster and less painful, both in the toll lanes and in the free lanes, but made little to no difference for many drivers battling morning traffic. According to an independent report prepared for federal transportation officials, the toll lanes along the 110 and 10 freeways didn't significantly change overall traffic speeds during peak periods for drivers using either the tollway or the general lanes.

Fare evasion along the Metro Orange Line has fallen significantly since law enforcement began a more aggressive campaign to check passengers' fares and issue citations and warnings, authorities said Tuesday.  The ratio of passengers riding the San Fernando Valley busway for free fell to 7% and ticket misuse fell to 5% after more Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies began checking fares and doing it more frequently, officials said at...

During a packed and sometimes tense four-hour public hearing Saturday, Los Angeles County transportation officials heard a litany of complaints from transit riders who said a proposed Metro fare hike would strain the budgets of students and working-class families. A crowd of more than 500 activists, students and low-wage workers packed Metro's downtown boardroom and spilled into the cafeteria as speaker after speaker pressed elected officials to avoid fare increases or service cutbacks.

Los Angeles County transit officials Thursday budgeted $6.78 million more for improvements on the Blue Line - one of the busiest light-rail lines in the nation, with 26 million riders annually and a history of accidents and fatalities. There have been eight deaths along the Blue Line so far this year, at least four of which were suicides, according to Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials. The most recent fatality occurred Thursday about 12:45 a.m., when officials said a woman apparently tried to swerve her Hyundai around lowered gate arms at a crossing in Compton and was struck by a Blue Line train.

Transit officials adopted a resolution Monday condemning a federal transportation policy that they said could put some of them out of business, but some praised its author, Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner. The American Public Transit Assn., which includes transit officials and suppliers from around the country, urged a federal gasoline tax increase of 7 cents a gallon for mass transit and said that Skinner's policy "fails to set clear, meaningful goals for increased transit use."

Los Angeles City Council members blasted county transit officials Friday for failing to follow proper procedures in budgeting money for the San Fernando Valley. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's inspector general recently found the agency had failed to follow procedures under which all Valley transit money should have been set aside in a special fund. The amount promised for building the Red Line subway to North Hollywood was in fact spent on the project, according to the report.

San Diego cab companies will be required to charge identical fares and give discounts to local residents who are frequent taxi riders under a proposal endorsed by Metropolitan Transit Development Board officials. The recommendations, which are expected to be approved Thursday at a board of directors meeting, will replace a variable rate system that has brought howls of protest from tourists and airport officials.

Orange County transit officials said Monday that they will seek congressional relief from conflicting federal regulations as a result of recent incidents in which passengers have been forced off local buses cited as overloaded. The California Highway Patrol has issued five tickets for overweight buses since Jan. 26. Riders--mostly dayworkers--have been forced off to wait for backup vehicles. The latest round of ticketing by the CHP comes after three similar incidents last year.

A little-noticed bill on Gov. Pete Wilson's desk threatens to slash the pay of California's highest-compensated local transit officials by thousands of dollars a year.

Chinese automaker Build Your Dreams is close to losing a $12-million contract to deliver a fleet of electric buses to Long Beach Transit, a deal the company hoped would jump-start its U.S. operations. Federal transit officials said that BYD violated some regulations that made it ineligible to bid in the first place. Both sides are in talks to determine how to best exit the contract ahead of what is expected to be a new round of bidding. It would mark a big setback for the Chinese company, which outbid four rivals last spring to build 10 electrically powered buses for Long Beach.

Fare evasion along the Metro Orange Line has fallen significantly since law enforcement began a more aggressive campaign to check passengers' fares and issue citations and warnings, authorities said Tuesday.  The ratio of passengers riding the San Fernando Valley busway for free fell to 7% and ticket misuse fell to 5% after more Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies began checking fares and doing it more frequently, officials said at...

Transportation officials in Los Angeles County plan to offer a ballot measure next fall or in 2016 that would raise the county's sales tax by half a cent or extend the life of Measure R, the levy voters approved in 2008. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and multiple advocacy groups say more transportation money would help expand the region's fledgling rail network, improve complementary service on bus lines, and speed construction and repairs on rail lines and highways.

Bay Area transit officials are investigating a report that a BART commuter train struck two employees working along a section of track. The report said that the incident occurred between Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill stations, according to BART's website. "We are working to gather more information and will update the public later this afternoon," according to the statement. Transit workers went on strike Friday after negotiations broke down over salaries and benefits. BART, the nation's fifth largest transit system, carries about 400,000 round-trip passengers each workday.

Re "Transit, meet LAX. Maybe.," Editorial, Oct. 13 What is so difficult about connecting rail transit to the Los Angeles International Airport? Officials with Metro and Los Angeles World Airports should go to New York and experience JFK airport's AirTrain - and then copy it here. They should connect the terminals, parking lots, the 96th Street bus terminal and the Green Line Aviation stop with a rail system like New York's (or Newark's) and be done with it. They should make the ride into downtown less convoluted by building a connector between the Green Line and the Blue Line - which already intersect - and run airport express trains to LAX. How nice would that be?

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown is seeking a judge's help to prevent a potentially crippling Bay Area transit strike as negotiators continue working to end an acrimonious, months-long contract dispute. If the Bay Area Rapid Transit system and its biggest unions do not reach a deal by Sunday morning, Brown will ask a San Francisco judge to order a 60-day "cooling-off period" in which workers would be prevented from walking off the job. A strike would "significantly disrupt public transportation services in the greater San Francisco Bay Area and endanger the public health, safety and welfare," according to a petition filed Friday by Brown and California Atty.

When voters passed Measure M in 1990, they thought that a wide assortment of tantalizing highway and transit improvements would be underway by now, from new, streamlined "super-streets" to expanded commuter rail services. Instead, county transportation officials have paid $250,000 in legal fees successfully defending the half-cent sales tax against court challenges, with resolution possibly a year away if the California Supreme Court reviews the matter.

Transit officials told a Los Angeles City Council committee hearing on Wednesday that trouble-plagued subway tunnels between Union Station and Pershing Square are nonetheless safe and structurally sound. If a major earthquake had been centered Downtown during the last two years, said Metro Rail design executive Martin Rubin, "there would have been no need for this public hearing . . . because the tunnel would have stood perfectly."

Workers in two of Bay Area Rapid Transit's largest unions were on strike Monday morning, halting service for an estimated 400,000 passengers who use the nation's fifth-largest rail system each weekday. SEIU Local 1021 spokeswoman Cecille Isidro said workers began their strike across the Bay Area around 2 a.m. Monday after the final trains were put to bed. From a picket line at the Lake Merritt station in Oakland, she said the union expects that a majority of workers will take part in the strike.

As striking Bay Area Rapid Transit workers placed the region's commuters in a stranglehold Monday, they were joined by more than 3,000 Oakland city employees whose contract negotiations have also stalled. The workers -- who do not include police, fire or other emergency personnel -- are represented by two unions and have been negotiating with city officials for the last 15 weeks. Like the BART workers, their contracts expired at midnight Sunday. As temperatures approached 80 degrees by mid-morning, hundreds of workers in brightly colored union shirts rallied in front of Oakland City Hall, then moved onto the street to block traffic.