MTA Agrees to Add Buses

In a unanimous decision that could end an often bitter decade-old dispute over crowded bus service in Los Angeles County, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority agreed Thursday to comply with a federal court order to add 145 buses by next year.

The MTA, which was accused in a lawsuit 10 years ago of favoring rail projects in wealthier areas over bus service in poorer ones, has repeatedly challenged the federal court’s mandated improvements, saying that it could not afford them.

On Thursday, the board agreed to use $30 million it had intended for future bus purchases to buy the remaining 75 buses it needs to meet the federal court order.

“The best we can do is show good faith,” said Frank Roberts, chairman of the MTA board and the mayor of Lancaster.

The Bus Riders Union, which has led the fight against the MTA, praised the decision not to challenge the court order. “It’s very positive that you want to buy 75 more expansion buses,” said spokesman Manuel Criollo.

Criollo and Los Angeles City Councilman Martin Ludlow, an MTA board member, questioned whether the plan to use funds set aside for future bus purchases would violate the 1996 consent decree that the MTA signed with the Bus Riders Union to improve bus service.

“We ask you [to] really look at other sources of funding,” Criollo told the board. “You have other sources of funding.”

Steven J. Carnevale, an assistant county counsel, said he believed the funding plan would not violate the court order, saying the agency is only “borrowing” future bus funds and intends to replace the money.

Another MTA board member, John Fasana, the mayor of Duarte, said he disagreed with the court’s order.

“I don’t think this is a value for the taxpayers,” he said.

The board’s 11-0 decision ends the latest skirmish in a 10-year battle between the MTA and the Bus Riders Union. In 1994, the group sued the agency, challenging a 25-cent fare increase and saying that the agency favored rail construction at the expense of bus service.

As the two sides were preparing for trial in 1996, they signed a 10-year consent decree in which the agency agreed to limit fares, reduce overcrowding and add new service to areas with concentrations of schools, hospitals and jobs. The two sides have been arguing about the improvement plans ever since.

Donald Bliss, a court-appointed special master, has twice specified the number of buses he wanted the MTA to buy. In 1999, he asked for 481 new buses, and the MTA said that it needed just 160.

After $1 million was spent on appeals and after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2002, the number was lowered to 248.

The MTA bought the buses.

This January, Bliss sought 145 new buses. The MTA insisted it did not need to buy any because it had already ordered enough buses to meet Bliss’ required 290,000 hours of added service in the next year.

Last month, U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter sided with Bliss.

The Bus Riders Union, arguing that the agency was spending more time fighting the court order than implementing it, filed for a six-year extension of the consent decree in March. That case is pending.

“They wasted all this money on attorney fees instead of complying with the decree,” said Connie Rice, the civil rights lawyer who filed the case. “It could’ve been over by now.”

Rice said the Bus Riders Union is not asking for much of a remedy.

“All this decree will do is, if you take the average bus rider who does this every day, out of seven trips, instead of having to stand all seven trips, she gets to sit down during three or four of these trips,” Rice said.

“Everything we’ve been asked to do, we’ve done it,” said Rod Goldman, who oversees consent decree service for the MTA.

The agency refrained from raising fares until this January, has put about 70 buses on new routes to schools, hospitals and job centers since 1997, and has cut overcrowding in half from about a year ago.

Goldman said the agency has beefed up service every six months.

Although the agency is buying only 75 buses, Goldman said, it will meet the 145-bus requirement by next June by pressing other recently purchased buses into service, and using older buses until new ones arrive.

The board did not appeal the latest court order on buses, but it did vote unanimously to appeal a ruling from Monday that nullified an environmental impact report for the proposed busway across the San Fernando Valley.

The agency plans to move forward with the $330-million separate track for buses, while simultaneously launching a new study to determine whether a network of rapid buses on Valley streets might be more desirable.

“We don’t want this project to slow down,” said Los Angeles County Supervisor and MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky, one of the biggest proponents of the 14-mile bus corridor now called the Orange Line.

Residents who filed the suit called the board’s plan disingenuous.

“The study is a faux study. They’re working toward a preordained solution,” said Diana Lipari, chairwoman of Citizens Organized for Smart Transit.

The group filed suit against the MTA in 2002, alleging that the busway was unsafe and that the agency failed to consider cost-effective alternatives.

Lipari contends that the busway, which would follow a defunct rail corridor, would cost $16.8 million per mile to build while a Metro Rapid line would cost $195,000 per mile.

A trial court judge threw out the lawsuit, but an appeals court reversed that decision earlier this week. The panel held that the MTA addressed the safety concerns but did not adequately consider rapid buses as an alternative in its environmental impact report.

The MTA board also approved a highway study in northern Los Angeles County.

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Timeline

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Beginning in the early 1990s, some Los Angeles County bus riders accused the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of favoring rail over bus service. They sued on the eve of a planned fare increase.

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Aug. 31, 1994: The NAACP files a federal civil rights suit, charging the MTA with “inflicting severe and irreversible harm” by raising fares and funneling money to rail projects at bus riders’ expense.

Sept. 1, 1994: Hours after bus fares increase by 25 cents, to $1.35, U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter rolls back the first fare hike in six years, an increase the MTA adopted after a series of raucous public hearings.

Feb. 1, 1995: The MTA is allowed to increase fares to $1.35.

Oct. 28, 1996: Hatter approves a consent decree requiring fares to stay at $1.35 for two years, cheaper weekly and monthly passes and 152 more buses on the streets over two years.

March 26, 1997: The Bus Riders Union says the MTA failed to abide by the consent decree, and Mayor Richard Riordan admits, “We are light-years away from having a plan” to expand the bus fleet.

March 8, 1999: Donald Bliss, the special master overseeing court-

mandated improvements, orders the MTA to buy 532 new buses.

May 14, 1999: Bliss trims his order to 481 new buses.

Sept. 23, 1999: Hatter gives the MTA 30 days to buy 248 buses.

Sept. 29, 1999: The MTA board agrees to buy 297 clean-fueled buses, but later appeals.

Aug. 31, 2001: In a strongly worded 2-1 decision, a federal appeals court panel rejects the MTA’s appeal of Hatter’s order.

Jan. 12, 2004: Bliss orders the MTA to buy 145 buses by the end of 2005.

Feb. 2, 2004: The MTA board appeals the order, saying the agency doesn’t have the money to buy and run 145 new buses over 10 years.

June 28, 2004: Hatter upholds Bliss’ order.

July 22, 2004: The MTA decides not to appeal and agrees to buy the 75 new buses it needs to put 145 more buses on the streets.

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Los Angeles Times