A LOOK AHEAD * Can a judge be persuaded to overturn landmark rulings by the special master he appointed? Transit officials hope so as the . . . : MTA Goes on Attack in $400-Million Fight With Bus Riders

Today, nearly five years after becoming one of the most powerful influences over mass transit in Los Angeles, Chief U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. once again will find himself in the middle of a long-running legal battle with far-reaching implications.

For Hatter is being called upon to weigh the interests of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority against those of the predominantly poor and minority passengers who depend on the MTA’s bus system for transportation.

This afternoon, in his wood-paneled and marble courtroom downtown, the judge will hear the MTA’s new legal team argue that the transit agency should not be forced to abide by a court-appointed special master’s order to buy 481 more new buses to reduce overcrowding and improve bus service.

Attorneys for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Bus Riders Union will counter that the MTA has failed to live up to the promises it made when a landmark consent decree was signed in October 1996. The agreement avoided a trial on a lawsuit that alleged that the MTA discriminated against bus riders by pouring billions of dollars into building subway and light rail lines while allowing the nation’s second-largest bus system to deteriorate.

It was Hatter who stunned the MTA in September 1994 by blocking a planned 25-cent fare increase and elimination of popular monthly bus passes because low-income and minority bus riders would suffer. The fare increase was later allowed to take effect, but only after the MTA and bus rider advocates agreed on a plan to reinstate the passes.

In the fall of 1996, it was Hatter who blessed the consent decree negotiated by the two sides. After the MTA and bus rider advocates voiced approval, it was Hatter who appointed Washington attorney Donald T. Bliss Jr. as special master to oversee compliance with the agreement. Since then, Bliss has held hearings, taken testimony, reviewed evidence and ordered the MTA to buy more new buses to relieve overcrowding and improve bus service.

Angered by the sweep of Bliss’ rulings this spring, the MTA’s board of directors decided enough is enough. To buy and operate the additional buses could cost the agency more than $400 million over the next five years and usurp the ability of the board to set the county’s transportation priorities, they said.

So, the MTA board adopted an aggressive legal strategy with the goal of overturning Bliss’ order and his interpretation of the consent decree. In doing that, the board served notice that if Hatter refuses to rescind Bliss’ decision, the MTA stands ready to take the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The MTA is arguing that Bliss does not have the authority to order anything. But because the agency will argue before a judge who has overruled it before--and who appointed Bliss--some see the appeal as a high-stakes gamble.

Whatever happens, the outcome could influence the future of mass transit in Los Angeles for years to come.

Over the objections of bus rider advocates, Hatter granted the MTA’s request for a hearing to consider evidence that the agency contends Bliss failed to consider in ordering the purchase of the 481 new buses.

“We want to emphasize that our bus service has improved markedly in recent months and it continues to improve,” said MTA Chief Executive Officer Julian Burke. He said the agency’s performance on the street is getting better, the number of miles between bus breakdowns has improved significantly and instances of overcrowding are decreasing.

Burke said the MTA wants to persuade Hatter “not to order us to buy the additional buses over and above” the 2,095 new buses the agency has promised to purchase during the next five years.

In legal papers seeking the hearing, the MTA argued that Bliss’ order would require the transit agency to spend “hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds, which it does not have, purely on existing bus service, at the expense of all other forms of transportation, including streets, highways, rail, light rail” and transit services for the disabled.

“It is even more clear to me today that being asked to put on this additional service at this time is not a wise thing for us to do,” Burke said in an interview.

Instead, Burke said the MTA’s plan to buy the 2,095 buses and convert its troubled fleet of ethanol buses to diesel power is “more than sufficient to meet the problem” of overcrowding.

Civil rights attorneys Constance Rice and Richard Larson did not want to argue their case in the newspaper before it goes to court. But in their court filings, they contend that the MTA is mounting “a shotgun attack on the consent decree.” The attorneys defend the special master’s ruling and insist the purchase of the 481 additional buses is essential if the MTA is to remedy the problems of a bus fleet that is too small, too old and too unreliable.

Environmental groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council, have filed an amicus brief in support of the bus riders. “MTA argues that it has done enough to improve the bus system, and that it can afford to do no more. MTA is wrong,” the brief says. “MTA needs to be as creative in financing the bus system as the rail system. MTA must adopt creative alternatives for a better, cheaper, and cleaner transit system. . . . MTA should purchase more new clean buses.”

While the bus rider groups insist Bliss correctly interpreted the consent decree, the MTA takes the opposite position--that the agreement never set absolute limits on overcrowding.

The decree imposes limits on overcrowding known as “target load factors” that get progressively more restrictive over time. By the end of 1997, the MTA was to have no more than an average of 15 people standing on buses during any 20-minute peak period. The standard--which MTA sought during negotiations on the decree--drops to an average of 11 standees by June 2000 and to an average of nine standees by the end of June 2002.

The MTA’s new attorneys, Patricia L. Glaser and Shirley M. Hufstedler, contend that Bliss’ interpretation of the consent decree requirements is simply wrong, and they say the special master lacks the authority to order the agency to buy more buses. This will be the first time that Hufstedler, secretary of education during the Carter administration and a former federal appeals court judge, has represented the MTA in court.

The bus riders’ lawyers respond that the MTA recognized Bliss’ authority by participating in hearings before him. The agency sought and briefly got an injunction from the special master to stop the Bus Riders Union from staging a “no seat, no fare” campaign last summer. And the MTA responded to a Bliss directive by reinstating late-night bus service that it had eliminated.

In seeking to overturn Bliss’ order to buy the extra buses, the MTA contends that spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy and operate the added buses would be wasteful and would come at “the expense of every other mode of public transit and transportation in the county.”

Attorneys for the bus riders reply that the MTA has extensive financial resources but lacks the will to divert more money to the bus system. “MTA . . . forgets what this lawsuit on behalf of minority and poor transit-dependent MTA bus riders is all about”--improving bus service, their brief said.

Ridership surveys conducted by the MTA several years ago show that there are distinct differences between its bus and rail passengers.

The survey found that 69% of the bus riders surveyed had a household income of less than $15,000 a year in 1995. Only 4% of bus riders had a household income of more than $50,000.

Passengers on MTA’s rail lines were more likely to have higher incomes, with 26% reporting a household income of more than $50,000 in 1995. The survey found 43% of rail riders had a household income below $15,000.

Fully 80% of the bus riders surveyed said they did not have a car available to them. Among rail riders, 51% had a vehicle available to them and 49% did not.

In the preamble to the consent decree, the two sides state that they “share a strong common commitment to the improvement of bus service for the transit-dependent populations of Los Angeles County.”

While the precise issues may have changed since those words were written, the fundamental question remains the same: Has the MTA done enough to meet the needs of the transit-dependent poor who make up the overwhelming majority of its passengers?