Bus Activists Vow to Block Pasadena Light Rail Project

Buoyed by a federal court decision ordering the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to buy hundreds of new buses, bus rider advocates Tuesday vowed a no-holds-barred campaign to stop the Pasadena light rail line.

Civil rights attorney Constance Rice told a news conference at the Bus Riders Union headquarters that the MTA and California Transportation Commission cannot commit $350 million to the Pasadena project until the court-ordered improvements to the county’s chronically overcrowded bus system are in place.

“If it means putting off rail for 25 years, so be it,” she said.

Some MTA board members also see a threat to the Pasadena project’s funding in the decision by a court-appointed special master requiring the MTA to buy 532 more natural-gas-powered buses and hire the drivers and mechanics needed to run them.

A new transportation agency created by state lawmakers to build the Pasadena rail line is set to adopt a financial plan for the project Friday. And the state commission is to consider releasing funds for the project late this month in Sacramento.

“Their financial plan has just had a torpedo shot through it,” said county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, an MTA board member. “They are counting on $350 million of MTA money.”

Yaroslavsky said special master Donald T. Bliss’ ruling is an unmistakable message to the MTA that it must make improving the bus system its highest priority, ahead of new rail projects. “I don’t know how we can ignore that and not be in contempt of court,” he said.

Supervisor Gloria Molina, also an MTA board member, said she too is concerned that the decision may derail the Pasadena project. She said that would be unfortunate because the rail line could ease overcrowding on buses and encourage commuters to take public transit and leave their cars behind.

Molina acknowledged that the MTA and its directors had been so “wide-eyed” over subway and other transportation options in the past that “management and the members were inattentive to bus riders. Now that’s been corrected by the courts.”

But although she called the ruling “appropriate,” Molina said she worried that it “is going to take us away from other responsibilities and duties. . . . It makes us one bus company.”

Despite the ruling, MTA board member John Fasana said he believes that “the plans for the Blue Line [extension] would go through.”

But the Duarte city councilman said the court order puts at risk a number of transportation projects in the county, including subway and light rail lines, carpool lanes and freeway sound walls.

Meanwhile, Paul Little, chairman of the Pasadena Metro Blue Line Construction Authority, said he doesn’t believe that the decision “impacts the Blue Line project at all. The state has directed the money be spent for this project.”

Little said the rail line from Union Station through Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, South Pasadena and Pasadena would serve “exactly the needs that the consent decree and the ruling are intended to serve, lower-economic, transit-dependent people. It does serve a very, very large need to a very, very dependent population.”

The Pasadena city councilman said the special master’s ruling is obviously going to have an impact on the MTA. But he expressed the hope that the transit agency’s board would not lose sight of what its priorities have been.

The Bus Riders Union has printed fliers in English and Spanish urging Gov. Gray Davis, Mayor Richard Riordan and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa to stop the transfer of the $350 million to the Pasadena Blue Line authority.

After the special master issued his order, Bus Riders Union leader Eric Mann declared that MTA board members and the state Transportation Commission cannot allocate money that could be used for buses to finance more rail work.

Mann called on Riordan, MTA board chairman, to oppose any move to appeal the ruling. Mann said the mayor could leave a legacy of better bus service for Angelenos if the MTA stopped fighting in court.

The mayor’s spokeswoman, Noelia Rodriguez, said Riordan has been “the loudest advocate for improved bus transit” on the MTA board.

But she said Bliss’ ruling “appears to be quite a surprise” considering that the MTA board had already backed MTA chief Julian Burke’s plan to spend $1 billion to buy 2,095 new buses over the next five years. “Julian has come up with a plan that is not only reasonable but financially responsible to the taxpayers,” Rodriguez said.

Burke has not been available for interviews since the ruling was handed down. In a prepared statement Monday, he said the ruling was “excessive” considering the agency’s previous commitment to improve bus service.

Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who will become chairwoman of the MTA board this summer, said she supports more buses but wonders where the money will come from.

“Any court order should not only talk about demanding someone should do it, it should also set up some mechanism to do it,” she said.

Rice replied that it wasn’t the courts but the MTA’s failure to comply with the consent decree it signed in October 1996 that tied the agency’s hands.

“They thought it was written in invisible ink, but it wasn’t,” Mann added.

Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.