Last February, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board approved in concept a staff plan to complete 28 major transportation construction projects prior to the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. This 28 by 2028 Plan adds completion of eight projects to the 20 specified in Measure M, the 2016 LA County transportation half-cent sales tax measure.
Metro has a history of failing to deliver on projects, and reducing transit use in the process. Metro has experienced a 20 percent drop in total vehicle boardings since 2013. Metro boardings per capita are down 37 percent from Metro’s peak ridership in 1985 and, for all Los Angeles County transit operators, end-to-end transit trips per capita are down 42 percent.
Metro relies on unrealistic long-range plans, and ultimately these plans fail because Metro consistently overstates future sales-tax revenues and understates the costs of major transportation projects. Real, inflation-adjusted growth in revenues from Metro’s four perpetual half-cent and single perpetual quarter-cent sales taxes has been very small. At the same time, some Metro projects have cost five to seven times their original projections. Large revenue shortfalls are looming.
28 by 2028 may be the least realistic plan Metro has yet contrived. The plan assumes that Metro will be able to shift substantial shares of California new Senate Bill 1 funding, sales-tax local-return funds, state-wide transit funding and federal discretionary grant funding for capital transportation projects toward itself. However, the competition for these resources remains very intense.
Most of the new revenue sources in the plan are highly speculative, and would take so much time to implement that new revenues would not be available in time to complete projects by Metro’s 2028 deadline.
Public-private partnerships (P3s) for capital project construction can provide important benefits for Metro, including cost savings, faster implementation and the transfer of some risks to other parties. However, most of the plan’s projected P3 savings accrue well after 2028. Metro intends to use private partners to finance the three P3 project candidates in the plan, but seems to also believe that future payments Metro will owe to P3 partners will not restrict the agency’s debt capacity. If Metro defers payments to partners until after 2028, this will limit the debt Metro can sell under its own name. It would also raise the total cost of Metro’s P3 projects.
Ever since 2007, Los Angeles’ transit ridership successes from 1996 to 2007 have been reversed by Metro’s fare increases and overinvestment in new rail lines, which has drained resources required for maintaining a well-utilized bus service.
Metro will not be able to complete all 28 projects in the plan, and it would be very damaging to try. The plan’s emphasis on new rail lines would mean tens of billions of dollars more will be misspent, and L.A. transit service will continue to deteriorate. Transit spending decisions should be made based on what will increase ridership, improve ride quality, address congestion most effectively and deliver for taxpayers.
Metro should fund bus service improvement, fare reductions and innovative transit options, not rail. The 28 by 2028 Plan does the opposite. If implemented, the plan will make transit in Los Angeles County worse for transit riders and most other users of the local transportation system, particularly the most vulnerable — low-income and otherwise disadvantaged residents.
Thomas A. Rubin is a transit consultant and former chief financial officer of the Southern California Rapid Transit District. James E. Moore is a professor of engineering and public policy at the University of Southern California. Tadd Long is an undergraduate student at USC.
