sentences:  The agency's powers were expanded in 1954, authorizing it to study and propose an extensive regional transit system.In 1957, another expansion of the agency's powers authorized it to operate transit lines, and it subsequently purchased the bus and streetcar lines then being operated by Metropolitan Coach Lines, which had taken over passenger service of the Pacific Electric Railway in 1953, as well as the bus and streetcar lines of the Los Angeles Transit Lines, successor to the Los Angeles Railway.The MTA began operating the lines on March 3, 1958, and continued to do so until the agency was taken over by the Southern California Rapid Transit District on November 5, 1964.