Cooper Crane is a public historian studying the history of infrastructure and transportation in Southern California. His current research includes the history of the Los Angeles metro, and the development of infrastructure along the Santa Ana River, the largest river in Southern California. His goal is to imagine sustainable and equitable alternatives and futures for urban environments. He is currently a graduate student of the University of California at Riverside.
In March, Metrolink announced significant service cuts on all lines, officially due to ongoing reliability and availability issues with their fleet. This resulted in more crowded trains, and more difficult, lengthier commutes for those in the Greater L.A. area. As gas prices surge – in response to the unprecedented attacks on Iran – the service cuts, first described by Metrolink as “temporary,” could not come at a worse time. The cuts were made permanent. Additional proposed cuts are expected to start in October as the agency faces a budget crisis. The result is a significant gap in public transit service at a time when public transit is needed most.
Metrolink is presently the only regional transit operator within the Greater Los Angeles area—the only one operating in all five counties: San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles, and Ventura Counties. Despite this, its funding, operational capabilities, and its governing authority are largely insufficient for the role that its service area would suggest. Metrolink is entirely reliant on the willingness of county agencies to contribute funding and requires county agreement and cooperation for changes to services. Recent issues/cuts show that this dependency on the politics of individual counties is no longer politically viable. Southern California needs a more integrated regional transit model that services the entirety of the Greater L.A. area.
Southern California public transportation is currently divided into county transportation authorities. The biggest of these is the L.A. Metro, which operates the main transit services for Los Angeles County. Even within L.A. County, however, transit services are divided into dozens of overlapping areas where municipal operators – including Antelope Valley Transit, Foothill Transit, etc. – run buses.
Orange County is serviced by OCTA, second only to the L.A. Metro in population size and in operations, while San Bernardino and Riverside County are serviced by Omnitrans and the Riverside Transit Agency respectively. These county bodies do not share a common fare system, and nearly all bus services end at the county line, mandating transfers to the other county operators at specific transfer points agreed upon between the agencies.
Since 1975, counties within California have been legally required to have their own transportation commissions because of a piece of legislation called AB 1246. AB 1246 was passed in response to problems with the Southern California Rapid Transit District which inherited all the transit providers prior to 1964, including the former lines of the Pacific Electric and Metropolitan Transit Lines (which themselves had been inherited by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Agency, discussed in this article.) While AB 1246 was specifically created to remedy a lack of local services by requiring greater county involvement in public transit, it did have the effect of curtailing the funding and authority of the SCRTD; it resulted in negative impacts to regional services. Instead of one transit agency that crosses over county lines and which has its own funding sources, Southern California has several different county run agencies that end at their county lines.
The problem with this model is that the economy, job market, and greater community of the Greater Los Angeles area are more integrated than these county service areas represent. Increasingly, more and more people are commuting out of their own county for work – in both east and west directions of travel. The boom of warehousing in the Inland Empire and the growth of service industries Riverside and San Bernardino Counties, for example, have inverted traditional commuter patterns. These areas were once bedroom communities, with residents commuting to Orange and Los Angeles County in the morning, returning home in the evening. Now, traffic flows always in both directions, highlighting the need for even more reconsideration of area transit networks.
Metrolink is the only transit agency in the Greater Los Angeles area that services all counties. It does not, however, service all areas within the Greater L.A. area. Metrolink’s tracks, leased from the largest freight railroads, BNSF and UP, don’t approach the interior of Orange County, leaving an area of more than five million people unserviced. There is also no connecting service for riders and commuters travelling from the Eastern Inland Empire, or Temecula and Temescal Canyons. This also leaves important connections to San Diego’s North County unrealized, with commuters having to go well out of their way on public transit, or to rely entirely on their cars. When Metrolink services are cancelled, the agency has no alternatives for riders, instead only offering vouchers for ride-share services that may not cover the total cost for their journey. The current problems with Metrolink’s service, including its maintenance/downtime issues, can be partly attributed to its track leasing requirements and partly because of Metrolink’s lack of electrification.
Metrolink’s main locomotive in active service, the EMD 125, is a locomotive only operated by Metrolink. EMD’s primary customers remain freight railroads; this and the almost bespoke fleet of locomotives unique to Metrolink have created the parts supply issues currently facing the commuter service. Electrification would allow Metrolink to procure common vehicles in service with other American commuter railroads, such as the Stadler Kiss now used by Caltrain in the San Francisco Bay. Electrification is difficult because Metrolink runs on tracks are not owned by the agency, but by the freight railroads, BNSF and UP. (BNSF owns the track used by the 91/PV Line, IEOC Line, and OC Line. UP owns the track used by the VC, AV, and Riverside line. Only the San Bernardino Line is owned by Metrolink.) Negotiations with the freight railroads determine the frequency and timetable of Metrolink’s service on tracks it does not own. This can be seen simply by looking at Metrolink’s schedules; lines owned by Metrolink have more trains operating more frequently.
The compounding effects have been service delays, which have created an appearance of unreliability that is detrimental to public transit in the Southern California region. Metrolink is also entirely oriented towards the East-West connections with Los Angeles. The only predominantly North-South route, the Metrolink Antelope Valley Line, is still oriented towards servicing Los Angeles primarily, leaving other important connections under or un-serviced. As Metrolink offers no service for commuters within the Temescal and Temecula Valley, this leaves potentially vital connections to San Diego via North County Transit unrealized.
Many of these problems are the fault of the complexity of Metrolink’s governance. In other words, these problems are not entirely Metrolink’s fault. Metrolink itself does not choose where to place station stops. This has been the case since its inception. When Metrolink was founded in 1992, the railroad worked with local cities to accelerate environmental review by having the cities and county transportation commissions themselves build and own the stations, exempting them from large parts of CEQA (the CA Environmental Quality Act). Metrolink is thus, and has always been, reliant on cooperation from municipal partnerships to determine the location of stations and services. For example, the commuter railroad has been attempting to expand services on the 91/PV line for nearly a decade, with a new stop at Placentia, serving Yorba Linda and Placentia, but opposition from NIMBY groups, as well as difficulties with negotiations with track owner BNSF, has delayed the project indefinitely. Likewise, attempts by Metrolink to expand service on the IEOC line have been met with little results due to the difficulties in getting cooperation from Orange County. Lawsuits, in particular from the city of Irvine, have prevented the construction of maintenance facilities necessary to ensure the expansion of services and a more regular timetable for trains between the two areas. While Riverside County sees a need, Orange County sees little benefit and thus is unwilling to commit any additional funding. L.A. Metro, which has historically subsidized most of the Metrolink system, plans to cut back on its Metrolink funding. Metro needs additional funding to prepare for hosting the Olympics, as federal funding for the city/county has been cut as part of retaliatory decisions by the federal government. These federal and L.A. County decisions are worsening Metrolink’s budget shortfall, likely meaning additional service cuts in October. Without a greater regional transit authority, one empowered to ensure a holistic intermodal transit service for the Greater Los Angeles area, these connections will be left incomplete and mired in opposition by local interests, even when the transit needs for the greater area grow more important by the day.
Historically, however, this was not always the case. Southern California’s transit divisions were not always predetermined. In fact, the past offered a more complete and integrated network of transit services than we have today. Many familiar with L.A.’s transit past will think of the Pacific Electric, which remains very popular in local imagination. However, despite its mythical status, the Pacific Electric, a private railway intended to promote land development, was replete with flaws that meant it was never really an appropriate transit operator. The Pacific Electric’s collapse however, did leave the southland with an agency that came close to the regional operator that could be a model for solving many of these issues.
In 1964, the California State legislature established an agency known as the Southern California Rapid Transit District or RTD. Intended to succeed the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, who were responsible for L.A.’s infamous monorail, the SCRTD was designed to address many of the weaknesses of that agency. The RTD operated bus and coach services across the whole of the Greater L.A. area, from Ventura to San Bernardino until it was itself replaced by L.A. Metro, technically operating with the same authorities created by the enabling legislation that created the RTD.
Until the 1970s, RTD operated inter-county services that connected counties with Los Angeles and its metropolitan core. Although the RTD was at times criticized for its neglect towards local service, it provided vital long distance links that otherwise would not have been serviced. RTD was caught between two seemingly impossible tasks: providing a regional transit system while also providing local service to Los Angeles. Gradually, many saw the RTD as beholden to Los Angeles. In the 1970s, legislation was passed which empowered local county agencies that replaced RTD services. However, as RTD services were replaced by county agencies, including OCTD (now OCTA), OmniTrans, and RTA, these long distance links were severed, later only partially restored by Metrolink in 1992.
Should Southern California bring back an agency like the SCRTD?
Many commuter transit agencies within the greater L.A. area seem to already realize that a more regional approach to transit is needed. OmniTrans’s under construction Purple Line BRT is intended to connect the eastern and western halves of San Bernardino, and Pomona in L.A. County. It is being branded as the West Valley Connector.
Metrolink’s own leadership also made a commitment to change the service model from a commuter railroad to a regional rail service that serves all the communities along its right-of-way. Los Angeles Metro, the legal and historical successor to the SCRTD, has, in the past, also proposed state legislation that would enable its authorities beyond the borders of L.A. County to act as a regional operator. With the completion of the A line to Pomona North, and a proposed extension to Ontario, it seems increasingly likely that regional operations will need to be considered by policy makers and planners.
A regional operating agency – or maybe even new state level policy within Caltrans that can direct and organize cooperation between public transit agencies – would help to benefit public transit within Southern California by empowering the construction of a more complete transit network, and by standardizing equipment and operating procedures across larger areas. A regional operator, empowered by the state, could for example, implement electrification for Metrolink that would benefit from cooperation with the California High-Speed Rail Project, and ensure a common fleet between Northern and Southern California commuter rail agencies, allowing the state to bargain with manufacturers from a stronger position. By combining tax resources, revenues, and funding, a regional operator could also proceed with larger and more important transit construction that cannot be completed by local agencies. One example could be restoring the right-of-way of the former California Southern route, providing a rail connection through the Temescal Valley to San Diego’s North County Transit.
As the urban demand for mass public transit continues to grow, the scale and complexity of the projects required to move commuters will also become increasingly complex, outstripping many local agency abilities. While local transit operators have a place within the larger schema of California public transit, the need to move more people through different hierarchies of mass transit will require larger agencies with greater powers to serve Californians more reliably. Metrolink could become a model for this. In addition to its history of servicing a larger region and multiple different counties, its governance structure consists of representatives chosen from the counties who Metrolink serves.
The SCRTD historically failed because of a lack of representation from areas outside of Los Angeles, but the model of a Joint Powers Authority agency, under which Metrolink is governed through the Southern California Regional Rail Authority could provide representation to each of the different counties. This could ensure that counties receive a fair share of service and representation in the governance of a regional transit operator, while leaving their own county transportation commissions independent. However, the JPA model itself is also limited when counties can withhold support for projects they disagree with, even when they benefit the entire system/region. A compromise may entail giving more authority to the regional body itself, whether it be Metrolink or some similar agency, to raise its own revenues, including through bonds, tax measures, or other mechanisms. Whatever the case may be, there are small steps that can be taken now that would give a more regional view of transit within Southern California.
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