Metro honors the late Richard Alatorre, our first CEO

Rest in peace, Metro Chairman and CEO Richard Alatorre, who passed away on August 13 and whose funeral was held today at the Cathedral of Our City of Angels in downtown Los Angeles.

Alatorre served as Metro's first Chairman of the Board from 1993 to 1994 and served on our Board of Directors from 1993 to 1999. He was a native of Los Angeles – born in Boyle Heights and raised on the Eastside, which he represented in the State Assembly and later on the Los Angeles City Council.

His leadership was critical to the success of Metro, which was officially created in 1993 following a merger of the LACTC (which planned projects) and the SCRTD (which operated public transit). Chairman Alatorre served on the boards of both agencies and was tasked with merging the SCRTD and LACTC into a cohesive agency that would plan and finance a variety of mobility projects in Los Angeles County and operate them across a broad swath of the county.

The challenges facing Alatorre and his colleagues were enormous. The last streetcar had been shut down in 1963. Yet the population in our region and the number of cars – and traffic – continued to grow. Highway expansion slowed as more and more communities resisted urban sprawl, pollution and the fragmentation caused by the new roads. Rail expansion was something many people supported – but concrete plans often failed to materialize until the passage of sales tax measures in the 1980s and 1990s.

With the help of these sales tax funds and under the leadership of Alatorre and many others, rail made a comeback. In the 1990s alone, the Blue Line (now the A Line), the Green Line (now the C Line), and the Red Line (now the B Line) opened. Alatorre in particular was a big supporter of the subway and planned to one day extend it to East LA.

He was also instrumental in pushing for the Gold Line to be built to Pasadena and East LA (after the subway failed to make it there). The Gold Line projects were not easy – both faced political and financial challenges at times. But both gained local support and were built despite significant disputes with Alatorre and many other local elected officials, including another influential Eastside politician – Supervisor Gloria Molina, who passed away in 2023.

Alatorre also played a key role in major projects that continue to have a positive impact on riders today, such as advocating for the Metro headquarters to be built next to Union Station, which he and longtime ally Mayor Tom Bradly wanted to see renovated so it could serve as our region's transportation hub.

Thanks to his leadership, the Metro Board of Directors passed an alternative fuels initiative in 1994 that marked the end of the era of diesel buses – known for their smelly and visible exhaust fumes. In 2011, Metro retired the last of its diesel buses and replaced them with an entire fleet of buses burning cleaner compressed natural gas. We are now working to convert that fleet to completely zero-emission buses.

Alatorre was also tasked with work critical to merging SCRTD and LACTC into one forward-looking agency. He met with staff and stakeholders to better understand how Metro should operate, oversaw the agency's first nondiscrimination statement (important for an industry that is increasingly diverse and sometimes has a less-than-stellar history when it comes to equity) that went beyond federal guidelines, expanded contracting opportunities for small and disadvantaged businesses, and identified other key policies that would guide Metro in its early years.

The entire Metro family extends its sincere condolences to the Alatorre family and his many friends and supporters throughout LA. Our CEO Stephanie Wiggins attended today's funeral to pay her final respects to our first Chairman, whose tenacity and vision will benefit the people of Los Angeles for decades to come.

Related