Judges Stay Order for MTA to Buy Buses

A two-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has granted the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s request for a temporary stay of a federal court order that required the agency to buy additional buses to relieve overcrowding.

After receiving a copy of the decision, MTA chief Julian Burke told the agency’s board members in a memorandum Monday that the transit agency will delay putting 88 additional buses on the street in January as the district court had ordered.

U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. ordered the MTA in September to buy 248 buses to relieve overcrowding on the nation’s second-largest bus system. And he directed the agency to put an identical number of temporary buses on the street by Jan. 3.

The MTA will have placed 160 of the temporary buses into service by the end of December. Burke said the agency will continue with the process that could lead to the purchase of 248 buses plus spares “while awaiting the ruling on the merits of this appeal.”

Hatter ruled that the transit agency had failed to comply with a consent decree to reduce overcrowding and improve bus service that it voluntarily signed in October 1996 to avoid a federal court trial on a civil rights case brought by bus rider advocates.

In a three-paragraph order issued Friday, the appellate judges--Clifford Wallace and Thomas G. Nelson--did not rule on the merits of the case, but granted MTA’s request for a stay of Hatter’s order. They set an expedited schedule for the filing of legal briefs in December and January, but no date was set for oral arguments on the MTA’s appeal.

The MTA board, angry at Hatter’s intervention in the agency’s determination of mass transit priorities, authorized the appeal on a variety of grounds. The agency’s attorneys told Hatter and the 9th Circuit judges that it cannot find uncommitted funds to pay the cost of operating the additional bus service.

Civil rights attorney Constance Rice called the decision “regrettable” and said it will delay improvements in service for MTA bus riders, most of whom are poor and minorities. “There can’t be any doubt that the other 88 buses are needed,” she said, because the MTA’s fleet is simply too small for the number of passengers that use the bus system.

E. Richard Larson, attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which is representing the Bus Riders Union, said Hatter and Donald T. Bliss, the special master he appointed to oversee compliance with the consent decree, have lived with the case for years. “They are well aware of the delays that the MTA has imposed throughout this process. It is unfortunate the appellate judges don’t understand the bad faith of the MTA in this case.”

The two judges, both Republican appointees to the court, generally are conservatives. In seeking the stay, the MTA argued that the delay is essential because the agency would suffer irreparable damage if it is ordered to buy additional buses without the funds to operate them.

Appearing before Hatter, attorneys for the MTA also argued that the federal courts lack the authority to order Los Angeles County’s transportation agency to buy more buses to remedy overcrowding. The agency contended that it is in substantial compliance with overcrowding limits known as load factor targets established in the consent decree.