MTA: A Vital Game of Numbers

Is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority meeting the terms of a federal court order to dramatically improve bus service? That’s the multimillion-dollar or perhaps billion-dollar question faced by the MTA and its transit riders, but the way that the answer is being determined needs some serious upgrading.

The court order is the result of a successful lawsuit on behalf of Los Angeles County bus riders. The court determined that the MTA had penalized riders on the nation’s most crowded and aged bus system by focusing on expensive rail projects that served far fewer people.

If bus service is found to be on track toward improvement, the MTA can continue getting its dreadful finances in order. If it’s “no,” then a federal judge and/or the special master appointed to oversee the bus improvements would creep closer to control of the MTA’s purse strings. When the courts assume authority over a public agency, their orders take the top fiscal priority.

The MTA is supposed to have reached a goal of less-crowded buses as of Dec. 31. On average, there were to be no more than 15 passengers left standing during peak rush-hour periods on the MTA’s busiest routes.

But the method being used to tally the MTA’s performance is ridiculously inexact, particularly with so much as stake. It is no wonder that the two sides are far apart on whether the MTA is complying.

It works like this: People on both sides of the lawsuit stand at bus stops and count by looking through the bus windows, cloudy and often ad-covered as they are. Occasionally, someone might actually board a bus and do a head count. The MTA’s counters are its own employees. The bus riders cull theirs from volunteers.

A count from outside the buses, by either side, won’t note seats going unused for whatever reason, and it will miss small people standing behind larger people. And the MTA’s counters and the bus riders’ counters don’t even show up at the same bus stops at the same times.

From this, the MTA claims that it is complying with the court order 95% to 97% of the time, while the bus riders’ legal advocates say that 80% of the time the MTA is definitely not in compliance.

This isn’t a situation where the parties have failed to land on the same page. They’re not even in the same library.

Here’s a better way: First, there should be more counters and they should ride on the buses during rush hour. The counters should pair up and make their tallies side by side. Finally, if needed, their work could be spot-checked by independent counters during surprise inspections.

That’s how to get to the bottom of this issue. Anything less is just a guessing game, played at the expense of the transit-dependent poor and a lot of future MTA funding.