End The [OCTA]'s Monopoly

That is -- sort of -- what James E. Moore, director of USC's transportation engineering program, called for in his contribution to yesterday's LA Times Opinion section.

It was an interesting article called "How To Fix Traffic" in which several experts were ask to give "quick and inexpensive" ways to reduce LA traffic. This was Moore's idea:

End the MTA's Monopoly

The first step is to end the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's virtual monopoly and allow private jitney and bus operators to enter the transportation market to compete with the MTA and with each other. Taxi cabs introduce only a small degree of competition because local authorities keep fleets small.

Transit entrepreneurs who get 100% of their revenues from fares (unlike the MTA, which is heavily subsidized by taxpayers) would quickly figure out what kinds of services would attract car drivers. Unfortunately, any entrepreneurs who dare to try right now would be prosecuted for defying the MTA's state-sanctioned monopoly.

That's ridiculous. It would cost nothing to end the monopoly and allow independent jitney services to freely enter the transit market. The result would be a burst of new travel options and fewer cars on the street with one occupant.

There's no intrinsic reason why Moore's idea should be confined to Los Angeles, and it is a genuine paradigm shift to think of buses and the like as part of a "transit market" rather than fundamental government service. People forget that until the 1950s and 1960s, bus transportation was provided primarily by  private operators.

But it's now an unspoken assumption that bus service is something provided by government -- we take it for granted and don't give it another thought. Consequently, all our efforts in this regard focus on how to make the government agency or agencies charged with bus service provide it more efficiently -- and that focus boils down to maintaining a sustained exercise of will from government staff and their indirectly elected (and rotating) directors.

Why exclude the private sector? Why not view bus service as a transit market rather than a government responsibility? What do we have to lose? As Moore states in the conclusion of this abstract entitled Market-Based Transportation Alternatives For Los Angeles:

The MTA or many of its services might be privatized to improve efficiency. If the fare box is the only source of revenue available, then configuring service to capture fares becomes the order of the day. Alternatively, entrepreneurs can be allowed to enter the transit market and compete with the MTA, allowing the Authority to remain a public entity, but forcing it to accept the discipline imposed by the market decisions. Los Angeles' existing, planned, and potential investments in HOV and HOT lanes would provide important opportunities for private transit, if such enterprises were legal.

Comments

[tylerh]

Here Here!

Where is the best place to start lobby for this?

I posit that this would be GOOD for MTA/OCTA. A tough part about using to is getting to and from a freakin' bus stop. Jitneys want to carry as many passengers as possible, which means they want regular passengers on short trips. Can our central planners see the obvious synergy here? MTA / OCTA could get a dream feeder system FOR FREE under this proposal.

Thanks to the unions, the world's largest free market economy has the least efficient transit system.

[Mr. Nitpicky]

tylerh: The correct spelling is "hear! hear!" (because you are calling for an opinion to be more widely heard).

[Pat]

I used to work in the Civic Center. Many people used OCTA buses or Metrolink. Then OCTA changed the bus routes and bypassed the Civic Center, because the monopoly oligarchs wanted the routes to run in straight lines! This threw many people back into their cars--they simply could not transfer twice and make it to work in a reasonable time.

At least the lines are straight now, though, and we all know how important that is!

[calwatch]

The main problem with this is that you will just skim off the major bus routes. Imagine dollar vans on Bristol, Westminster, Bolsa, and Harbor, but no other service any where else, since no one will want to serve those areas. I think increasing taxis is a swell idea because they are licensed and bonded agencies. Unfortunately, state law enshrines the Public Convenience and Necessity provision, which is basically a means of ensuring that existing cabbies get protected. Jitneys, on the other hand, could just be those so-called "wild chicken trucks" that you see in equatorial countries where they just stuff people with little regard for safety. Yes, the libertarian argument would be that people choose their safety level, except when somebody actually gets hurt and sue everyone in sight.

The other thing is James Moore got his chance. They were called Smart Shuttles, they were tried out ten years ago, and they were uniformly deemed a failure. Mr. Moore should examine some of his papers on Smart Shuttle and evaluate why riders didn't like them. Hint: riders like predictability, and a schedule provides that. They don't like calling in waiting five minutes to an hour for their ride to show up.

[calwatch]

As far as the straight line thing, that's all Lisa Mills' fault (former OCTA CEO, 1997-2001). She pushed the idea through despite resistance from staff and riders, and she was forced to resign as a result. That has more to do with an individual incompetent manager and her lackeys rather than government as a whole (although the elected BOS and city councilmembers who hired this turkey deserve some blame as well).

[Recycled Cholo]

unfortunately ... when southern califas counties were granted authority to form transportation commissions (TC's), OCTA and MTA handed this responsibility over to their transit districts ... whereas Riverside and San Bernardino wisely created separate and more powerful transportation planning agencies with separate boards ... now to go and undue this separate authority and POWER from OCTA and MTA transit (and rail) folk .... pues ... buena suerte ... because without MTA and OCTA muscle ... the other so califas TC's and SCAG are just moscas ...

[calwatch]

Actually, OCTC and LACTC used to exist but were merged in the name of efficiency. In addition, LACTC and SCRTD were always at loggerheads over something, with LACTC pushing light rail to nowhere and SCRTD pushing the subway and the bus system. (Ironically, Tom Rubin, the CFO or SCRTD and one of the casualties of the SCRTD-LACTC merger, is now a big Reason Foundation writer.)

The reason SANBAG (San Berdoo's CTC) and RCTC exist is that their largest transit agencies (Omni and RTA, respectively) do not serve the whole county. When transit agencies serve the whole county, they generally merge with the CTC because planning staff can be shared. An example is San Francisco, where Muni and the CTC merged to form the SFMTA, and San Mateo County.