Court Order Spurs Plan to Buy 278 Buses

Forced by a court order to improve service on the nation’s most overcrowded bus system, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board voted Thursday to buy up to 278 new, alternative fuel buses.

Although some key details remain to be worked out before the $89-million purchase becomes final, the deal calls for the new compressed natural gas buses to begin service late next year.

Interim transit chief Julian Burke urged the board to immediately approve the bus purchase, citing the pressure of the landmark consent decree requiring the MTA to reduce overcrowding on its buses.

But as he struggles to unravel the agency’s byzantine finances, Burke cautioned that he will not give final approval to the order “until I am satisfied that the money will be available.”

Los Angeles Mayor and MTA board Chairman Richard Riordan said the money will be found. “It’s going to take some cost-cutting and a variety of other things,” he said. “It’s not there now, but I guarantee it’ll be there.”

Constance L. Rice, lead attorney in the civil rights lawsuit that produced the federal consent decree almost a year ago, said: “It’s finally beginning to dawn on MTA what it’s facing.”

But, Rice, western regional counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, added: “Given the state of the fleet and what they’re facing for the future, this is a pretty pathetic showing.”

Rice has complained to the court-appointed special master that the MTA has moved too slowly to implement the required bus improvements. Burke said Thursday that he believes the agency is complying with the decree.

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The MTA faces a Dec. 31 deadline for reducing crowding on lines serving transit-dependent riders. “We’re at a crossroads of timing,” Burke said in urging swift action on the bus purchase.

The 278 compressed natural gas buses would give the MTA--which boasts of having the world’s largest fleet of clean-air vehicles--823 such buses on the street or on order. That amounts to 40% of the fleet.

The new buses eventually would replace some vehicles nearly two decades old that are operating in northeast and South-Central Los Angeles. Transit officials said they may need to keep some of the older buses in service--even after the new vehicles arrive--in order to meet the court order.

The board approved the bus purchase after its staff gave assurances that the buses are safe.

Richard Hunt, MTA’s deputy executive officer for transit operations, said New York and Toronto pulled compressed natural gas buses--made by a different manufacturer--off the street because of concerns about the safety of the fuel tanks. But he added that New York has returned the buses to operation. Toronto has not put its buses back on the street “for political reasons” but is planning to change the tanks and return the buses to service, Hunt said.

In Los Angeles, an explosion of a compressed natural gas tank in August 1996 led the MTA to temporarily pull the vehicles off the streets. Officials said the buses have undergone retrofitting and are safe.

Separately, the MTA staff is preparing to recommend that an additional $4 million be spent to convert 329 trouble-plagued ethanol buses to diesel. The proposal is expected to draw fire from environmentalists.

Officials say the ethanol buses--serving downtown Los Angeles, southeastern Los Angeles County and the San Gabriel Valley--have turned into 40-foot lemons, breaking down so often that, on a typical day, one-third are out of service.

New diesel engines are cleaner than older diesel but still spew twice as much pollution as natural gas buses.

Hunt said that when the ethanol buses break down, “we have to run [old] buses that are twice as polluting as the clean diesel.”

In other matters, after hearing loud protests from angry MTA police officers, the MTA board signaled a willingness to consider a merger of the transit agency’s police force with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department if remaining stumbling blocks to a contract with the Los Angeles Police Department are not resolved by next month.

The MTA has reached agreement with county supervisors for the Sheriff’s Department to take over 40% of the transit police force as early as Nov. 2.

But the deal to have the LAPD take over the remaining 60% of the transit police remains stymied two years after negotiations began on issues involving pension benefits and personnel matters, including the failure of at least 43 MTA officers to clear LAPD background checks.

Larry Barr, a member of the Transit Police Officers Assn. executive board, received loud cheers from MTA police officers when he urged the transit agency board not to proceed with the LAPD contract and instead to seek a complete merger with the Sheriff’s Department.

Sgt. Robert Lewis called the MTA’s negotiations with the city “a fiasco.”

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Originally, the city was considering a merger of the transit police, but backed away after the background checks found that 43 MTA officers would not qualify to join the LAPD. Instead, the City Council approved the concept of the MTA contracting with the LAPD to police the subway and bus lines.

MTA Police Chief Sharon Papa is puzzled about why such a large number of her officers failed the background checks. “I don’t have 43 problem children,” she said.

“This is not a perfect plan and there is no way to have a perfect plan,” Riordan said. But the mayor said the consolidation of most of the MTA police into the LAPD is very important.