The Southern California Rapid Transit District (almost always referred to as RTD or rarely as SCRTD) was a public transportation agency established in 1964 to serve the Greater Los Angeles area. It was the successor to the original Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). California State Senator Thomas M. Rees (D-Beverly Hills) sponsored the bill that created the RTD, which was meant to correct some deficiencies of the LAMTA, and took over all of the bus service operated by MTA on November 5, 1964. RTD was merged into the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1993.
Creation
RTD was created on August 18, 1964, to serve the urbanized Southern California region, including Los Angeles County, San Bernardino County, Orange County, and Riverside County. RTD replaced the major predecessor public agency, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, and took over eleven other failing bus companies and services in the Southern California region. RTD was placed in charge of creating a heavy rail public transportation system for Southern California, and for planning for bus improvements. In 1974, the El Monte Busway was opened, a bus-only lane (later converted to a high-occupancy vehicle lane). In 1973, RTD shed parts of its operations outside of Los Angeles County, (they were taken over by other agencies including what was then the new Orange County Transit District (now Orange County Transportation Authority), Omnitrans and Riverside Transit Agency although it continued to operate inter-county service to Riverside and San Bernardino until the formation of LACMTA.
Downtown terminal
From 1967 until 1982, RTD operated a main downtown terminal in the basement of the Greyhound bus terminal at 6th and Los Angeles Streets. Greyhound used it until 1991, when they moved to their current terminal on 7th St. Because of the positioning of mirrors in the single entrance/exit ramp, buses entered the ramp and drove in on the left hand side of the ramp (standard American practice is to drive on the driver's right side of the road or on a ramp), where at the bottom, a display lamp would indicate which of the 15 berths the bus was to terminate at. The driver would then turn left and go around the bus berthing area, which was in the center of the terminal. This prevented buses from ever having a danger of collision as the buses would always travel through the terminal in a clockwise direction, whereas in standard American traffic, vehicles drive on the right and a traffic circle or "roundabout" has traffic moving counterclockwise.
The terminal also had a rule, indicated on all signs leading to the bus berths, that cash payments were not accepted on buses in the terminal; a person had to either have a monthly pass or purchase tickets on the ground floor (one floor above the bus area). Tickets were standard paper coupons with amounts of 10¢ to $1.00, and could be purchased at any time, not merely when one was taking a bus. Tickets were accepted on all RTD routes at all times, and could also be purchased at various locations around the region, although RTD buses accepted cash everywhere, except when departing from the downtown terminal.
RTD eventually discontinued use of the Greyhound bus terminal in the late 1980s, and resumed having connections for buses on the various streets in the downtown area.
A similar practice occurred in Long Beach for the small number of routes that left its downtown area. RTD operated a small office on Ocean Boulevard, required tickets to be purchased, either there or in advance, and prohibited acceptance of cash payment for buses leaving the stop in front of its Long Beach downtown terminal. When the City of Long Beach introduced the consolidated transit mall, RTD discontinued the use of its own terminal, and allowed persons to pay cash on buses leaving the downtown Long Beach Transit Mall.
Animosity
RTD was essentially the "800 pound gorilla" as far as public transportation in Southern California was concerned. In a 1983 video created by RTD, the District stated its operating service area was larger than that of the transit systems of Miami, Buffalo, Atlanta, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. combined.