MTA to Again Appeal Bus Service Agreement

Los Angeles County’s transit agency voted Wednesday to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a federal agreement requiring a massive expansion of bus service for poor and minority riders. Board members for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority called the agreement too costly and overly intrusive.

The MTA board voted 8-4, with one abstention, to pursue a final appeal after a string of bitter legal defeats stretching over several years.

Board members cast their decision as an attempt to gain clarity on a confusing and contradictory court order that could hamper other transit efforts, including highway and light-rail improvements.

But civil rights activists and bus rider representatives said the vote is just the latest evidence of the giant agency’s intransigence when it comes to helping mostly low-income bus patrons.

Legal observers predicted that the MTA has only a slim chance of convincing the Supreme Court that there is an issue of legal merit in the dispute.

“We are going to try to get clarification on this matter. . . . The way parts of this decree are set up is very unfair,” said board chairman John Fasana, who added that he believes the MTA has not received credit for adhering to the order to improve bus service.

Taking strong issue with that stance were members of the Bus Riders Union, an advocacy group that was the lead plaintiff in the civil rights case that led to the federal court agreement more than five years ago.

“The board should be a little more honest,” said Eric Mann, the Bus Riders Union leader. They “are appealing the heart and soul of the consent decree and leaving an empty shell. It’s disgusting.”

According to the MTA’s chief counsel, the appeal, which must be filed by Monday, will revolve around several issues. First, the MTA will contend that the contract is unfair and unclear. In addition, the agency will argue that the federal judge and a special court master overstepped their bounds in telling the MTA it must add more buses to a fleet of roughly 2,100.

MTA administrators worry that such specific directives could become even more onerous as the lower court’s timetable begins to dictate the level of service that must be provided to hospitals, schools and job centers. If too much money goes to those efforts, the order could jeopardize the agency’s big ticket rail and highway improvements, they say.

“The special master should have given more discretion to the MTA to come up with their own remedy to the [overcrowding] violations that he found,” said the agency’s chief counsel, Steve Carnevale.

But several legal experts said the odds are extremely remote that the high court will agree to accept the case as one of the few it reviews each year. Additionally, the MTA’s case revolves primarily around narrow disputes over contract law, an issue the Supreme Court justices will not likely view as weighty or novel.

A lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, called it “highly unlikely” that the court will take the case. That view was echoed by several legal scholars not connected to the case.

The bid to the Supreme Court will be the MTA’s fifth appeal of an agreement that it negotiated and signed in 1996--a record that has infuriated many civil rights advocates.

A federal judge, the court-appointed special master, a three-member panel of the U.S 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and a broad panel of federal appeals court judges have all ruled against the MTA and in favor of the bus riders.

Joining the advocates Wednesday was Los Angeles Mayor James K. Hahn. Fulfilling a campaign promise, Hahn argued that the agency should stop its appeals and concentrate on “working to provide better bus and better transit service to the people of Southern California.

“I am disappointed we are continuing to have this battle in court,” a frustrated Hahn said after the vote. He had been unable to sway any of the members other than his three appointees, who all voted against an appeal.

The mayor did see the board unanimously approve a motion he wrote, calling for MTA administrators to implement the court decree as best as they can. The directive requires both sides to take disputes to special master Donald Bliss for settlement.

But that arrangement may prove problematic. MTA administrators say they have little faith in Bliss, who has ordered them to buy hundreds of buses in order to achieve the first portion of the decree--including a series of benchmarks to lessen overcrowding.

Roger Snoble, the agency’s new chief executive, said he is particularly troubled by the strict “load factors” the bus line must adhere to. One that looms this June 30 requires that the number of passengers forced to stand at rush hours not exceed the number who are seated by more than 20%.

Snoble argues that many bus lines nationally don’t meet such a strict standard and that the MTA needs flexibility and latitude to occasionally break the load goals.

But Bliss has consistently held that the load limits must be strictly enforced.

Snoble said the huge bus agency deserves more credit for the progress most observers agree it has made and acknowledgment that his administration is aggressively addressing crowding issues since he arrived in October.

Bus Riders Union chief Mann, in contrast, said he’s not about to negotiate, particularly over decisions repeatedly affirmed in court.

“They introduced the load factor idea in the first place, we didn’t come up with it,” Mann said outside MTA headquarters downtown. “Now they want to change? Come on. They want to throw the whole consent decree out the window.”