Too Little, Too Late?

The battle over the nation’s second-largest bus system is on.

After concentrating on rail construction and neglecting the backbone of Los Angeles’ mass transit for years, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is promising better bus service and rolling out new equipment.

But unwilling to accept promises, advocates for bus riders are taking their demands for improved public transit to the streets. Insisting that the MTA has made little progress in reducing overcrowding on its buses despite a federal court order, the activist Bus Riders Union plans to launch a “No Seat, No Fare” campaign beginning this morning.

In advance of the threatened fare strike, Mayor Richard Riordan joined MTA Chief Executive Officer Julian Burke on a Monday morning ride to City Hall on one of the county transit agency’s newest buses.

Riordan, who chairs the MTA board, said the agency is making progress in improving its bus operations. “For 15 years, the MTA has had a total fix on rail lines,” the mayor said, despite the fact that 91% of all passengers use buses.

Turning to the man he brought in last summer to run the troubled agency, Riordan said, “Julian Burke has broken the cycle of pouring money into black holes and has put the money back where it belongs: on the buses, on the streets.”

But MTA’s aging bus fleet continues to be plagued by breakdowns and high maintenance costs. Because of the agency’s failure to order enough new buses, almost 40% of its fleet exceeds the federal guideline of no more than 12 years of service.

An experiment with hundreds of methanol/ethanol-fueled buses proved to be a costly disaster with so many problems that engines had to be replaced as often as every 25,000 miles.

Though new compressed natural gas-powered buses are arriving weekly, MTA still struggles each weekday to find enough working equipment to roll out the 1,805 buses it needs to operate a full schedule on its routes. Officials admit that many days they fall short of that goal.

Frustrated with waiting for the substantial improvements required under a federal court order, the Bus Riders Union has been taking its case directly to MTA’s passengers, urging them to join the “No Seat, No Fare” campaign.

“We’re asking people not to pay,” said Eric Mann, head of the Bus Riders Union. “We are trying to stop the worst bus system in the U.S. from falling apart completely.”

Mann said the working poor and minorities who use the bus system have been victims of discrimination because the MTA’s board of directors has poured billions of dollars into building the subway and light rail lines. “We’re asking the MTA for once to make the bus system its big-ticket item.”

The stark difference between the aging bus system and the new rail lines prompted the NAACP and the Bus Riders Union to file a federal civil rights lawsuit against the MTA in 1994.

Two years later, the agency signed a federal court consent decree and promised to roll back fares, reduce overcrowding and improve bus service.

But the question of whether MTA has complied with the court order is still being argued before a special master appointed by a federal judge. Both sides are engaged in preparing legal briefs concerning whether the MTA met or failed to meet a Dec. 31, 1997 requirement that there be no more than 15 people standing on any of its buses during peak periods.

While MTA officials say bus service is getting better, that view certainly was not shared by bus riders interviewed Monday morning at the corner of Vermont Avenue and Pico Boulevard, amid one of the city’s busiest bus corridors.

“To me, bus service is as difficult as ever,” said Hilda Chajun, a mother of four who was en route to her housekeeping job in Pacific Palisades. “I know they keep promising it will improve, but I haven’t noticed the difference.”

On several occasions in recent weeks, Chajun said, buses with empty seats drove by her scheduled stop in the early-morning hours, declining to pull over. She ended up being late for her job, to the consternation of her boss.

“We depend on the bus, and we can’t have them passing us by for no reason like that,” said Chajun, standing on a corner where signs in Spanish and Korean attest to the area’s heavy immigrant population.

Other commuters echoed her complaint about buses not stopping and cited a familiar litany of problems: overcrowded buses, late buses, impolite drivers. None of a dozen or so regular bus users said they had noticed any major improvement in service in recent months.

“I don’t see any change for the better,” said 20-year-old Alfredo Perez, en route to his job as a restaurant worker in Santa Monica. He said he thought many buses were making fewer stops. “It means you have to walk farther,” Perez said.

Iyisa Hicks, a 27-year-old student at Cal State L.A., said she did notice one slight improvement: Schedules now seem to be available. As someone who occasionally spends as many as four hours a day on a bus--two hours to drop off and pick up her 2-year-old girl at day care, and another two to go to school and return--she appreciates knowing exactly when buses are supposed to show up.

“Sometimes I can run in and do a little shopping before the bus comes,” she said as she waited for the westbound 30 on Pico.

Hicks is less than thrilled though, when bus drivers stop their vehicles to do their shopping--a problem that Hicks says she has witnessed repeatedly. She says she has seen bus drivers stop to buy fast food, fruit--even, in one instance, a beaded car seat.

“They just pull over, stop the bus, do their shopping and come back to the bus,” said an exasperated Hicks. “They don’t even say ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience’ or anything.”

But all agreed that buses run frequently on the Vermont and Pico routes frequent, albeit service is of questionable quality.

“The Vermont line--it’ll get you there,” said Thomas, who was waiting at the stop with her 3-year-old granddaughter, Maya. “Sometimes it’s crowded, but it will get you there. . . . But I wouldn’t say service is good. It’s not good at all. It’s fair. It could get better--a lot better.”

With an array of new buses parked behind him in a bus yard east of downtown Los Angeles, Burke said the transit agency has made progress in improving bus service, but he admitted it may not be noticeable yet. “I hope it won’t be too long until it is obvious to our riders that the bus system is improving.”

Before the end of the year, Burke said the MTA will have more new CNG buses on the street, and many of the problem-plagued methanol/ethanol buses will be retrofitted with new diesel engines and put back into service.

“There is nothing more important now than getting back to our basic business, and that basic business is our bus operation,” Burke said.

He again promised that the MTA will operate a reliable, clean and safe bus system.

While Mann commends Burke for his dedication to improving bus service, he believes delivering on that promise will be impossible unless the MTA orders substantially more buses.

When the 1984 Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles, the RTD had an active fleet of 2,600 buses. Today, the MTA struggles to put 1,805 buses on the road.

The Bus Riders Union is demanding that MTA order 1,600 new buses in the next two years to deal with the twin problems of overcrowding and older buses that break down frequently.

“The No Seat, No Fare campaign lives or dies on a purchase order,” Mann said.

The two sides are far apart on how many buses are needed and how soon.

MTA has ordered 223 additional CNG buses that should be delivered beginning next summer. Burke plans to ask the MTA board to place another order for 215 buses in coming months.

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New Buses on the Way

With its fleet suffering from regular breakdowns and court action pending, the MTA in 1994 began to order new buses powered by compressed natural gas. Since then, 495 of these new buses have been put on the street. An additional 223 of the clean-fuel buses will be delivered starting next summer. Meanwhile, the MTA is converting its crippled methanol-ethanol buses to diesel power and 20 new diesel buses have been purchased from Las Vegas. Some concerned with air quality object to the use of diesel-powered buses in a region with the nation’s dirtiest air.

MTA Bus and Rail Ridership

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its predecessor--the Southern California Rapid Transit District--long have operated America’s second-largest bus system. But, since the late 1980s, the priority that the MTA has given to building its subway and two light-rail lines has allowed the heavily used bus network to deteriorate dramatically.

Note: A boarding is one passenger climbing aboard a bus or train once. A round trip on one bus or rail line is counted as two boardings.

Average weekday boardings during June

Bus System: 91%

Bus boardings: 1,042,101

*

Rail System: 9%

Rail boardings: 103,525

MTA’s Most Heavily Used Bus Lines

1 Vermont Ave. (204)

2 Wilshire Blvd. (20)

3 Olympic Blvd. (28)

4 Western Ave. (207)

5 Santa Monica Blvd. (4)

Source: Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Researched by JEFFREY L. RABIN / Los Angeles Times