Master Rejects MTA Challenge to Authority

In a major defeat for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a court-appointed special master late Friday rejected the transit agency’s challenge to his power and issued a revised order directing the MTA to buy 481 new buses to relieve overcrowding.

Although fewer than he had previously estimated, the new buses must be purchased and additional drivers and mechanics must be hired if the MTA is to improve its bus service and reduce delays for passengers, Special Master Donald T. Bliss ruled.

The decision, issued three days after Bliss heard attorneys for the MTA argue that he has no authority to require any bus purchases, sets the stage for a confrontation between the MTA and Chief U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter.

It was Hatter who approved a landmark consent decree in October 1996 that required the MTA to take steps to reduce overcrowding and improve the bus service used by more than 90% of the agency’s riders.

The decree negotiated by the agency and bus rider advocates avoided a trial on a federal civil rights suit brought by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Bus Riders Union.

The groups alleged that the MTA discriminated against predominantly poor and minority bus riders by allowing the nation’s second-largest bus system to deteriorate while emphasizing construction of subway and rail lines.

In his lengthy decision Friday, Bliss dismissed MTA’s “newfound view” that he lacks the authority to direct the transit agency to order the new buses. Instead, he noted the parties had agreed to progressively stricter limits on the number of people forced to stand aboard MTA buses. The decree also established the special master’s authority and procedures to resolve disputes between the parties.

“The MTA’s argument comes too late--more than 2 1/2 years into the implementation of the consent decree,” Bliss said. “After invoking the special master’s authority on previous occasions, the MTA cannot now be heard to disavow the special master’s agreed-upon authority to resolve remedial disputes.”

After an initial reading of the decision, the MTA’s new attorney, Patricia Glaser, said it will be her “very strong recommendation” that the MTA board go to Judge Hatter in an effort to overturn Bliss’ decision. Bliss gave the parties 20 days to seek a review of his decision.

“We’re surprised that he hasn’t changed his position,” Glaser said. “We’re disappointed that he continues along the same path, at slightly less speed.”

Attorneys for the bus riders were elated by the decision.

“The special master has lived with this case for more than three years,” said Richard Larson of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “He knows what is required. MTA has been in denial, now in defiance. It has to come into compliance.”

Larson suggested that instead of hiring more attorneys, the MTA should buy more buses. He said if the agency has the will to comply with the consent decree--as Chief Executive Julian Burke told Bliss on Tuesday--it can do so by providing better bus service.

The only bright spot for the MTA in Bliss’ latest ruling was a reduction in the number of new buses from 532 in the order issued in March to 481 in his ruling issued Friday.

Bliss arrived at the lower figure by reducing the number of buses needed to comply with the overcrowding limits downward to 379. He said the MTA still needs to add 102 buses to expand capacity on certain routes.

MTA attorneys and transit chief Burke told Bliss during more than three hours of oral argument in Hatter’s courtroom Tuesday that it does not need to buy more buses than it currently plans. Instead, the MTA contends it can reduce overcrowding with existing plans to buy 2,095 new buses over the next five years, finish converting its troubled ethanol fleet to diesel and improve service by adding new tracking, communications, and fare box technology.

The agency also contends that by using sophisticated scheduling techniques, it can use its existing fleet more effectively. But Bliss said the MTA has not demonstrated that this will work.

The two sides agreed to a series of targets for reducing overcrowding from no more than an average of 15 people standing during any 20-minute period at the end of 1997 to 11 people by the end of June 2000.

On Friday, Bliss renewed his demand that the MTA take immediate steps to lease or acquire 248 buses on a temporary basis in order to meet the overcrowding limits.

He also rejected the agency’s contention that the cost of acquiring the additional buses will force the agency to violate its obligation to fund other transit and highway programs.