Overweight Buses May Soon Return to CHP Hit List : Transportation: Federal waiver for the vehicles, which are too heavy and may harm pavement, expires next month.

With the expiration next month of a federal waiver, overweight Orange County buses may once again risk being pulled off the road by the California Highway Patrol.

“It’s a pavement preservation issue,” said Tom Fortune, government relations specialist for the Orange County Transportation Authority.

Along with many buses around the country, OCTA vehicles are heavier than federal regulations allow, which is bad for pavement, especially freeway pavement. But CHP officers in Orange County are particularly vigilant about enforcing the code.

The 20 OCTA buses that travel on freeways currently operate under an exemption granted by Congress that will expire Oct. 6. Unless the waiver is renewed, the buses could be pulled over by the highway patrol.

In 1991, officers stopped several buses on the highway. Packed with people riding from Santa Ana to work in South County, the buses were ordered to stop on the highway and those who were standing were told to get off, apparently because of the weight they added to the vehicles.

“A lot of the riders thought it was an [Immigration and Naturalization Service] raid. They climbed out the windows and jumped out the emergency exit,” said Dan Matthews, a legislative aide to Rep. Jay C. Kim (R-Diamond Bar).

“They were understandably alarmed,” Fortune said.

The OCTA tried appealing to the CHP. “We said, ‘Gee, you’re not enforcing this anywhere else,’ ” Fortune said. “But the officers, all the way up to the captain, said they had the right to enforce the code.”

“I’m not certain how we became aware that the buses were heavy,” said Lt. Ray Wininger of the CHP’s commercial and technical services section in Sacramento.

“Sometimes, out in the field, the buses will wander onto our scales,” he said. The average bus is 40 feet, has 43 two-person seats and can accommodate 29 people standing in the aisle.

Agency officials eventually asked for help from former Sen. Alan Cranston, who won an exemption for county buses.

Now, though, with an intensely partisan Congress sparring over everything from avian botulism to whether Washington, D.C., should be allowed to elect its own school board, there is the possibility that the Oct. 6 deadline will pass without action.

“In this atmosphere, it’s really tough to get things through,” Matthews said. Kim, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has included a waiver for the OCTA in a transportation authorization bill that is making its way through the House.

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Many in Congress want to pass the bill, the National Highway System bill, by Oct. 1 to avoid interruptions in federally funded highway projects, but it could be stalled if the Senate and House cannot agree on spending limits for the projects.

“We just don’t want it to be left hanging,” Fortune said.

CHP officials said they did not know whether officers will begin pulling Orange County buses over immediately if the deadline passes without action.

Meanwhile, officials with Northrop Grumman Corp. said they are hoping to answer the question of how to trim 10,000 pounds off the standard 16-ton OCTA buses.

The company is working under the direction of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority on a lightweight model made of a glass composite, which is “as strong as metal,” said Robert Graham, project director at Northrop.

Northrop, which expects to receive $54 million in federal transportation funds for the project, hopes to have the first prototype completed by October, 1996, Graham said.

But for now, the OCTA is counting on Congress. Stan Oftelie, the agency’s executive director, wrote to Transportation Secretary Federico Pena in July seeking a waiver, but the response was not what he had hoped.

“We are aware of the predicament faced by your agency,” George Reagle, an associate administrator for the transportation department, wrote back. “At this point . . . this matter is completely in the hands of the Congress.’