MTA Votes to Appeal Order to Buy 481 Buses

Determined to halt the loss of their power to set the county’s transportation priorities, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors on Monday voted to appeal a court-appointed special master’s order to buy 481 new buses to relieve overcrowding.

Reached behind closed doors, the 10-1 decision to go to Chief U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter Jr. and, if necessary, to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals represents a dramatic escalation of the MTA’s resistance to the authority of Special Master Donald T. Bliss.

The transit agency’s strategy entails a major risk, for it was Hatter who ordered the MTA in 1994 to roll back planned increases in bus fares and the price of monthly passes.

It was Hatter who approved a landmark 1996 consent decree between the MTA and bus rider advocates that sets specific requirements to reduce overcrowding and improve bus service.

And it was Hatter who approved the selection of Bliss to oversee compliance with the decree.

But the MTA board now argues that the special master has no power to order the purchase of new buses to reduce the number of passengers who must stand during peak periods.

In fact, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky--the lone no vote against the appeal--said the MTA board has launched an assault on the federally approved agreement.

“The MTA wants to blow up the consent decree. That is the ultimate strategy. This is a decree to which the MTA agreed,” Yaroslavsky said. “I’m not going to be a part of reneging on the commitment we made to our customers.”

Yaroslavsky said the directors want to be free “to run the MTA the same way they did before we had these constraints on us.”

MTA chief Julian Burke told the board that compliance with Bliss’ revised order to buy 481 new buses, lease 248 buses until the new ones arrive and hire additional drivers and mechanics would cost the transit agency $463 million over the next five years.

“The special master’s ruling is excessive and unreasonable when you consider that MTA already is buying more than 2,000 buses through June 30, 2004, with new buses arriving weekly,” Burke said in a statement.

Mayor Richard Riordan, chairman of the MTA board, said the agency needs to challenge Bliss’ order that more buses--above and beyond what MTA is already committed to buying--are the answer to overcrowding.

“The fact of the matter is he is wrong,” Riordan said. “By following his order we would not be doing what’s in the best interest of the transit dependent. We’d be wasting money.”

The MTA argues that the additional buses are not needed because the agency is committed to spending more than $800 million during the next five years to purchase 2,095 new buses to replace much of its aged and trouble-prone fleet.

Indeed, there is no money in Burke’s proposed $2.5-billion budget, which was adopted Monday, to comply with Bliss’ order in the coming fiscal year.

Although a public hearing still must be held, the budget assumes the agency will increase bus fares this fall from $1.35 to $1.45 along with increases in monthly and bimonthly passes and tokens. After hearing protests from numerous bus riders, the MTA board directed Burke to look for alternatives to the fare hike, which would raise $10.2 million.

In deciding to seek judicial review by Hatter and if necessary the Court of Appeals, MTA board members are concerned that Bliss may order the agency to do much more to expand bus service, so that bus riders have better access to jobs, schools and health care.

Some MTA directors believe such a move could delay future rail projects.

Riordan said the agency already is in substantial compliance with the consent decree requirements on overcrowding 98% of the time, a suggestion bitterly disputed by bus rider advocates.

But Eric Mann, leader of the Bus Riders Union, dismissed the MTA’s reasoning. “By that logic, a person would say to the court: Your honor, I only ran two red lights out of 100 while I’m drunk. I’m in 98% compliance with all traffic laws every day.”

Civil rights attorney Constance Rice, who filed the 1994 case that led to the consent decree, said the board’s action demonstrates that “they have the same commitment to the consent decree that they have to the bus system, which is none.”

Rice said the law and the consent decree are clear: The special master and the federal court have the power to order the MTA to remedy overcrowding and improve bus service.

“They gave the court this power,” Rice said. “This is a consensual, bargained-for framework. The court did not impose anything.”

Rice said the fact that MTA buses primarily serve poor people is responsible for the “aggressive level of neglect shown by most of the politicians on the MTA board. If the system served the middle class, it would be in fine shape.”

In an interview, Riordan said that in hindsight the consent decree’s requirements that overcrowding be reduced in several steps are “a mistake.”

Instead, he said, the MTA board and the courts need to refocus on what’s in the best interest of the transit dependent, instead of merely ordering the MTA to buy more buses. He suggested that smaller shuttles and rapid bus service with fewer stops could better serve the 91% of MTA’s riders who depend on the bus system.

Rice, who negotiated the consent decree with Riordan, rejected his suggestion that the MTA board did not know what it was doing when the agreement was reached.

“It’s not plausible they didn’t understand this document,” she said. “Lawyers don’t sign documents they don’t understand.”