MTA Loses the Latest Round in Bus Battle

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s latest attempt to avoid a court order forcing it to buy 248 new buses to improve service was rejected Thursday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Officials at the giant transit agency said they were expecting the ruling but expressed disappointment that another decision in the long-running court case had gone against them.

“We were hoping it would go otherwise,” said MTA counsel Steve Carnevale after informing the agency’s executive management committee of the court’s decision Thursday morning.

But bus rider advocates celebrated the victory in a case in which they have sought to reduce crowding on bus lines.

“This is very exciting news,” said Eric Mann, founder of the Bus Riders Union. “I hope there’s enough decency on this board to say, ‘No more appeals.’ ”

The MTA board will consider at a meeting next week whether to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court or drop its lengthy legal battle, which stems from a 1996 federal court agreement to reduce overcrowding on the system’s 2,100-bus fleet.

At issue, MTA officials said, is not the 248 additional buses that a federal judge ordered them to add to existing lines. The last 88 of those were put on the road Oct. 1, officials said.

Rather, transportation officials said they are concerned about the precedent set by a federal court order that requires the addition of a specific number of buses.

“We’re not trying to get rid of the consent decree,” said MTA spokesman Marc Littman. “What we want is clarification about how the court interprets the consent decree compliance, and what is the jurisdiction of the court. What’s to stop a judge from saying next month, ‘You need another 500 buses out there’?”

MTA officials have argued that spending money on additional buses could badly curtail their ability to undertake rail, freeway and other projects.

But bus riders have accused the agency of discrimination and say the MTA has kept old buses on the street instead of purchasing new vehicles.

“The MTA, in my opinion, has tried to go from blatant defiance to structural noncompliance,” Mann said. “This is like the MTA writing its own law. The order said, ‘Buy new buses,’ which they’ve refused to do.”

Littman said that the additional 248 buses now on the road are a combination of new and old vehicles and that the old ones will be retired once a new shipment arrives in November.

When the MTA takes up the issue again next week, it will thrust the spotlight back on Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn, an MTA board member who also appoints three others on the 13-member panel. Hahn has said since last spring’s mayoral campaign that he wants the agency to drop the appeal.

However, he was not at the meeting last month when the MTA board voted to ask for a rehearing. His appointees to the board were not able to prevail in an attempt to drop the court case and the mayor’s absence angered bus rider advocates. (The mayor was in Washington, D.C., on a lobbying trip that was cut short by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.)

This time, Mann said, bus riders hope that Hahn will help get enough votes on the board to end the legal fight.

“He did not provide the leadership required,” Mann said. “Now is his chance.”