Worried about Metrolink Cuts? Blame Metrolink ‘Joint Powers Agreement’ Governance Structure
In March, Metrolink announced a series of service reductions due to ongoing reliability issues. In April, OCTA and L.A. Metro announced budget cuts to Metrolink, so those reductions now appear permanent, with additional reductions possible, pending the adoption of the new budget. For riders, there are questions. What are the impacts of the cuts? What led the agency into the current situation? And what can be done now to steer Metrolink in a better direction in the future?
Metrolink is currently ten million dollars short of the required absolute minimum needed to maintain current service levels. This translates to an anticipated 20% reduction in service, meaning fewer trains and less frequency across the system. The budget shortfall is the result of budget cuts at both L.A. Metro and OCTA which have traditionally been the main source of agency funding. Metro’s cuts are part of a 3% overall reduction to the entire L.A. Metro budget, while OCTA’s cuts, about 10%, are specifically cuts to Metrolink service, part of an ongoing dispute under OCTA’s CEO Darrell Johnson, who believes Metrolink’s current number of daily trains are “probably a bit too many.”
While it is easy to blame OCTA for the cuts, doing so would ignore the larger structural issues. The bottom line is that if you’re worried about the impending cuts, you should blame deeper structural issues with Metrolink’s own governance structure.
Metrolink is governed by a Joint Powers Agency (JPA), an agreement between several different county authorities that have agreed to cooperate with one another for some purpose. The JPA that governs Metrolink is remarkably short and was never intended to last for as long as it has. Instead, the JPA was a unique agreement that allowed the Greater Los Angeles area to take advantage of an exceptional opportunity that made Metrolink’s own founding possible. It allowed counties to create Metrolink with minimal state involvement and therefore a very quick turnaround. But Metrolink’s JPA also has an overreliance on unanimous consensus that prevents truly democratic decision making, and which fails to hold contributing agencies accountable to one another. It also places far too much responsibility for Metrolink’s operating budget and capital investments on the county member agencies. Because of this, the JPA has flaws that have limited Metrolink’s growth and capacity, and created political divisions within its leadership that have impacted its efficiency. To be succinct, the current JPA structure frustrates the different parties that govern Metrolink, but there are opportunities for improvement.
Why was Metrolink created under a JPA in the first place? In the late 1980s, Metrolink was born out of Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC, a forerunner of Metro) discussions to revive commuter rail in Southern California. At the time, the only commuter rail in operation was the OCTA-supported, Amtrak-operated, Orange County Commuter Rail which was later replaced by the Metrolink Orange County Line. An attempt to revive commuter rail in the early 80s through a service called CalTrain (not to be confused with the Bay Area’s service of the same name) fell through due to political opposition in Sacramento under Governor George Deukmejian and the unwillingness of Southern Pacific to cooperate. Regional commuter rail had not been seen in Southern California in over four decades with the decline of the Pacific Electric. Attempts to revitalize the P.E. were made at several points, and were the genesis of the Metro A Line, but had yet to reach the scale required to serve outlying counties.
Beginning in 1989, the LACTC was approached by several different freight railroads, including the Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, and Santa Fe railroads which offered to sell L.A. area tracks and rights-of-way for what amounted to pennies on the dollar. LACTC then reached an agreement with the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), and the individual counties in the Greater L.A. area (through their respective county transit commissions) to collectively buy the offered tracks and start a new commuter rail service. What emerged from these agreements was a JPA formally called the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, known as Metrolink. For two years, LACTC would provide staff and administrative infrastructure to start Metrolink before handing over full control to a SCRRA controlled administration, an agreement that was reached by the five counties that formed Metrolink.
The structure of the JPA allowed Metrolink to rapidly begin operations and to circumvent lengthy environmental impact reviews that could have stretched out over decades. It also kept state involvement to a minimum, hence avoiding political gridlock in the state legislature. Legally, any cross-county service would also require a JPA agreement between the different counties serviced by the common carrier. The JPA was thus both a legal requirement, and a means to accelerate Metrolink’s activation. From initial discussions in the late 1980s to the start of Metrolink operations in 1992, Metrolink went from an idea, to planning, to service in less than five years, inarguably a success.
Metrolink offered dramatic improvements in service to OCTA’s Orange County Commuter and brought back commuter rail to Greater L.A. areas that had not seen trains since the late 50s, all under the structure of the JPA.
The JPA, however, only works when all the members are on the same page, and frequently, they are not.
As I outlined in a previous article, the different counties and their respective county transportation commissions have conflicting interests and desires, even if only in the short term, that prevent long-term benefits from being realized. The budget cuts of OCTA are emblematic of this. OCTA’s budget cuts are leading to an overall reduction in service, despite desire from both San Bernardino and Riverside Counties to expand Metrolink service; both of those counties have committed to increase their Metrolink funding contribution.
Together, San Bernardino and Riverside have a greater population – and more Metrolink board votes – than Orange County. However, OCTA’s budget cuts effectively act as a veto against any expansion, regardless of these counties’ desire, because the JPA gives full discretion over contributions not to the board, but to the individual member agencies. Per section 8.0 and section 9.0 of the Metrolink JPA, “Decisions dealing with capital and operating fund allocations, as well as annual approval of each member agency’s share of the authority’s [SCRRA] annual budget, shall be approved by the member agencies
themselves.”
There is nothing preventing OCTA from enacting its cuts, and nothing holding it accountable to the desires of the other partner agencies and counties. While OCTA may have a larger share of the funding contribution and therefore may argue that its cuts are validated by lack of contributions from other members, this argument is undercut by the fact that many of the workers who work at tax-paying industries and businesses in Orange County live and commute from Riverside and San Bernardino.
Under the current JPA, governing decisions about Metrolink, which have emphasized unanimous consensus, have in fact produced a consequently undemocratic board structure that gives disproportionate power to oppositional efforts, rather than expansive or positive ones.
This level of member agency control over budget decisions left Metrolink’s own staff scrambling during in April budget preparations, when OCTA informed Metrolink of their decision. Similarly, L.A. Metro also informed Metrolink of their cuts, in April, during budget development. The problem prompted Highland City Councilmember and Metrolink Boardmember Larry McCallon to suggest that Metrolink should implement “five year plans,” to prevent future surprises.
The JPA structure further limits Metrolink authority by requiring consensus from the member agencies to make most of its critical executive decisions, including decisions that should be left to Metrolink itself. Fares, just one example, have not kept up with inflation over the past 15 years, as they are at the discretion of the board. At the June board meeting, Pomona Mayor and Metrolink Board member Tim Sandoval questioned why there was no mechanism that allowed fares to automatically be increased as part of the budget process.
Additionally, Metrolink is limited in the status of the board members themselves. Board members are selected from members of the transportation commissions of each county and from the San Bernardino Associated Governments.
Metrolink board members therefore sit as board members by virtue of their status on other boards and are frequently non-experts who have split responsibilities; they do not work full time on Metrolink issues. This is not a reasonable expectation for the board members, as it gives them additional responsibilities which pulls them away from other duties they may have been elected for, and creates an opaque layer to Metrolink’s own governance.
How should the JPA governance issues be resolved?
Metrolink’s own staff should first be given greater autonomy in decision making, including decision making that does not require the intervention of the governing board. For example, Metrolink’s own staff should be able to determine fares and adjust them accordingly without having to go to the board. The board members for Metrolink should also not have split-responsibilities but should instead be full-time, appointed members who are appointed for their expertise and technical abilities in managing commuter rail.
Ideally Board members to the Metrolink Board, or any succeeding regional authority, should be voted on directly in a regional vote, or appointed by the governor, with recommendations from the county transportation commissions for their technical expertise, and not ex-officio officers. This is the model currently used by the New York MTA, the largest transit operator in the United States, and a similar structure exists at Chicago’s Regional Transportation Authority, created to unify the transportation in the Chicagoland area. Ideally, these members would be transit users as well.
Funding issues need to be resolved. Member agencies – counties – should be committed to Metrolink, contributing a minimum amount of funding, with a mechanism for ensuring accountability between them. Budgets should also be decided for multi-year periods, preventing year-to-year uncertainties regarding operating budgets and available funds. However, there should also be greater state support for regional rail.
The largest expense in Metrolink’s budget, are the fixed operating costs. These costs, including the cost of maintaining right-of-way, are an undue burden on the different counties that are party to Metrolink’s governance. As these rights-of-way benefit the state as a whole, not just the counties, the state should increase funding to reduce their burden. While the state currently uses funding from Cap-and-Invest programs to support commuter rail, a permanent revenue mechanism should exist for Metrolink that is under the agencies controlled, granting greater autonomy from the counties themselves.
While the counties that make up Metrolink (and possibly the LOSSAN Corridor, which shares membership with Metrolink’s governances) can undertake some of these reforms themselves, including diverting more authority from the board to Metrolink’s own staff, some reforms will likely require state legislation. State Assembly enabling legislation would be required to expand the authorities of Metrolink and give it more power and flexibility to build and expand its operations. While the desire for local control remains strong, this move would free individual counties from the responsibility of running Metrolink and free more resources for local transit—having a say in the new board membership through recommendations or local non-partisan member elections would still allow accountability to the interests of counties will also granting a degree of autonomy necessary for long term planning. State legislation would also be needed to give Metrolink the legal authority to raise its own revenue, without county approval.
In essence, Metrolink should be gradually moved away from the JPA and moved toward a new regional authority in its own right.
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