MTA Admits Violating Bus-Crowding Court Order

Top Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials admitted Tuesday that the county transit agency is massively out of compliance with a federal court order to reduce chronic overcrowding on the nation’s second-largest bus system.

The admission by MTA officials during a closed-door evening meeting with bus riders’ representatives is at odds with previous public statements that the agency is making progress in improving the bus service heavily used by poor and minority passengers.

In fact, sources said MTA Chief Executive Julian Burke acknowledged in a conference call with a court-appointed special master last week that on a substantial number of bus lines, the agency is not in compliance with the overcrowding limit contained in the two-year-old federal court order.

The overcrowding limit was imposed after the MTA board agreed in October 1996 to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit filed against the agency by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Bus Riders Union.

The actual data show the situation is far worse than Burke indicated. On virtually all of its major bus lines, the MTA is failing to meet the court’s requirement that there be no more than an average of 15 passengers standing on its buses during peak periods.

The acknowledgment could set the stage for Special Master Donald Bliss to order the MTA to buy far more new buses to replace its aging and breakdown-prone fleet. At some point, the transit agency--like some recalcitrant Southern school district from another era--could even find itself being run by an exasperated federal judge.

Simply complying with the special master’s latest order could force the MTA to shift its priorities from completing its rail system to rehabilitating its long-neglected bus fleet.

And such a shift could not come at a worse time for the agency, which still must persuade a House-Senate conference committee in coming weeks to provide continued federal funding for subway construction to North Hollywood.

Despite repeated requests Tuesday, Burke refused to be interviewed. Instead, he issued a brief statement saying that in the past, the MTA used a standard for calculating compliance with the consent decree that identified selected lines where additional buses needed to be deployed. Using a stricter standard set by the special master in a recent ruling, “many Metro Bus Lines could be impacted,” Burke said.

“Regardless the MTA is prepared to respond and will do everything possible to comply with the consent decree for the benefit of our Metro Bus passengers,” Burke said.

Violations Were Widespread

Eric Mann, leader of the Bus Riders Union, said the two sides basically agreed Tuesday evening that over 70 bus lines carrying more than 90% of the MTA’s bus riders have “exceeded the overcrowding standard of the consent decree.”

While MTA officials and their lawyers struggled with bus rider advocates over the precise wording of a filing today with the special master, Mann said the agency’s failure to comply with the court order is clear.

“For the vast majority of passengers on the vast majority of their bus lines, the daily experience is not just a technical noncompliance with the consent decree, but a brutal violation of their civil rights,” he said.

Mann demanded that Burke and the MTA board declare an immediate moratorium on finishing the Metro Rail subway to North Hollywood and a halt to funding both a light-rail line to Pasadena and the Alameda Corridor rail project.

He insisted that the MTA needs to order 1,600 new buses to reduce overcrowding on a bus system which he said is “in shambles.”

The poor condition of the MTA’s bus fleet was underscored in a report prepared for federal transit officials last spring. That document says the agency has fewer buses available for service and they are in far worse shape than at any point in the past 10 years.

Breakdowns occur much more often--on average every 2,600 miles this year compared to 6,374 miles only four years ago--forcing buses out of service and aggravating overcrowding problems on those buses that remain in service. With the frequent breakdowns, the number of bus runs being canceled has soared. So many of the MTA’s buses are out of commission that the agency has trouble finding enough each weekday to meet its scheduled service.

The agency has long known about these difficulties with its aging bus fleet, but it continued until recently to press ahead with subway construction and other rail projects. The MTA has only recently begun to order and receive new buses.

After severe engine problems, the agency also had to sideline more than 200 buses powered by ethanol or methanol. It is now in the process of converting them to diesel power.

Both transit chief Burke and Mayor Richard Riordan, who chairs the MTA board, have touted the arrival of new buses powered by clean-burning compressed natural gas and promised that passengers will begin seeing improvements in the MTA’s bus service by year’s end.

But the data presented by officials Tuesday shows the gravity of the problem the agency faces to improve service for the 91% of MTA passengers who depend on buses, not trains, for transportation.

Guidelines Were in Place

The vast majority of the transit-dependent in Los Angeles are poor and minorities, and that was the basis of the civil rights lawsuit filed in 1994. To avoid a trial in federal court, the MTA agreed to a consent decree almost two years ago that required a measurable reduction of bus crowding in stages by 2002.

By the end of last year, the MTA was to have no more than an average of 15 people standing on its buses during any 20-minute peak period.

The load-factor limit gets progressively tougher over time, down to 11 standees by the end of June 2000 and eight standees by the end of June 2002.

The figures that must be faxed to the special master today show each bus line where the MTA failed to meet the so-called “load-factor reduction target.”

Sources said the figures show that with only a few exceptions, every major bus line the MTA operates was in violation at some point during the first and second quarters of this year.

Consultants to the Federal Transit Administration confirmed earlier this year that MTA’s bus system is experiencing serious problems. After reviewing the agency’s bus operations from fiscal year 1988 through 1997, the consultants, Mundle & Associates, reported that the size of MTA’s bus fleet was the smallest in nine years.

“Though there are fewer buses in service,” the consultants noted, “the fleet has been getting older.”

In October 1988, the MTA had an active fleet of 2,554 buses. It was capable of putting just under 2,000 buses on the street.

But by July of last year, the active fleet was down to 2,103 buses, and only 1,666 of them were operational.

This year, Richard Hunt, the MTA deputy director of operations, said he needs to roll out 1,805 buses for peak periods and often falls short of that goal. “We’re not doing as well as we’d like.”

And that can have an impact on passengers.

“Any time you miss service,” he said, “you have the potential for overcrowding.”