MTA Board Unswayed by Protest

Angry members of the Bus Riders Union, arguing that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is not abiding by a landmark federal consent decree, were rebuffed Wednesday when they demanded immediate action by the agency’s board to improve bus service in Los Angeles.

In a showdown with the MTA board and its most influential member, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, union activist Eric Mann called for an urgent vote to purchase more than 150 buses to relieve overcrowding on one of the nation’s biggest bus systems.

Riordan pointedly questioned why the agency does not have a top official whose sole responsibility is ensuring that bus service improves and that the consent decree’s requirements and deadlines are met. And he set the tone for the rest of the board by saying that he had “a zillion questions” about how the agency should come up with an ideal plan to better serve bus riders.

But Riordan told Mann and more than 60 vocal demonstrators that “we are light-years away from having a plan” to expand the bus fleet as the court had ordered in October.

When it became apparent that directors of the county transit agency did not intend to act on competing proposals from the MTA staff and bus riders group to increase the bus fleet, the discussion came to an abrupt and noisy conclusion.

With Mann declaring that the MTA had betrayed bus riders and did not give “a damn” about the consent decree it had signed to settle a two-year civil rights lawsuit, the demonstrators began chanting: “Stop the lying, start the buying. Buy the buses now.”

After a closed-door session during the noon hour, the full MTA board returned and passed a motion by Riordan to refer the entire issue of improving bus service to the agency’s operations and planning committees.

At the mayor’s insistence, however, the board instructed the committees to report back at the agency’s May meeting with a firm proposal to acquire more buses.

Just before the unanimous vote, Mann told the board that it did not want to confront “a crisis in your bus system.” And he asked rhetorically whether the MTA really wants to fight the issue in Washington and back in federal court.

The consent decree requires the transit agency to put more buses on the street, reduce serious overcrowding that leaves many passengers standing during peak periods, and freeze or lower the cost of bus fares. It was signed by MTA, civil rights groups led by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr.

But in the intervening months, the agency has run into serious difficulties financing continued construction of its troubled $5.9-billion subway project. As federal funding shrinks, the agency is caught in an ever-tightening squeeze that pits the rail construction program against bus service, and such highway projects as carpool and bus lanes.

A top federal transit official expressed concern last week about the agency’s ability to fulfill the requirements of the consent decree and achieve a “recovery plan” to get its subway project back on track.

Against that backdrop, the battle was joined Wednesday.

The MTA staff presented their proposal for replacing the aging bus fleet, improving service and reducing overcrowding by 2002. But the plan was immediately branded as inadequate by the bus riders union, which offered a far more ambitious and expensive proposal.

Faced with conflicting charts and figures and unable to unravel the differences between the rival plans, the MTA board, which has favored the subway project, decided not to act immediately.

Linda Bohlinger, MTA’s acting chief executive, said later that the staff’s proposal would have provided a more affordable and flexible approach to bringing new buses into service and retiring old ones. She said that MTA does not have the money to purchase 600 buses next year as the Bus Riders Union demanded.

MTA Board Chairman Larry Zarian, clearly miffed that the morning meeting had disintegrated because of the demonstration, scolded the union members, saying they must show respect to the transit agency board and should be ashamed of their protest.

But acknowledging the leverage they have, Zarian said: “There is a consent decree that we have to abide by. It’s the law.”