MTA Budget Indicates It Won’t Heed Court Order

Underscoring its aggressive new legal strategy, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Friday unveiled a $2.5-billion budget that does not provide for compliance with a court order to buy 532 new buses.

Although the spending plan includes major increases for purchases of hundreds of other new buses and for the drivers and mechanics needed to operate them, it draws a sharp line on just how far the MTA is willing to go to improve the bus service used by more than 90% of its riders.

Both the budget and the MTA’s recent legal filings make clear that the agency does not intend to comply with Special Master Donald T. Bliss’ recent order to buy still more buses to relieve chronic overcrowding. Indeed, the MTA is challenging the special master’s authority even to issue the order.

And the absence of funding for those buses signals that the agency assumes that the federal court fight between bus rider advocates and the MTA will not be resolved quickly.

In presenting the budget to reporters, MTA chief Julian Burke said the fiscal year beginning July 1 will be a watershed for the transit agency that will see “a quantum improvement” in bus and rail service, including opening of the subway to Hollywood in June and to the San Fernando Valley next year.

The spending plan envisions the MTA putting 437 new natural-gas-powered buses on the street to replace many of its old, breakdown-prone vehicles. And the agency will increase the hours of bus service by 4%.

But Burke acknowledged, in response to questions, that the budget does not contain or reserve the funds to comply with Bliss’ directive. Nor does it have funding to immediately lease or otherwise obtain 277 buses while the 532 court-ordered new vehicles are being manufactured, as the special master required. And there are no funds set aside to operate those buses.

Burke said the greatest risk to his spending plan would be a federal judge directing the agency to buy the additional buses. Such a directive would be a “very dramatic and destabilizing event” for the agency, he said.

If the court issued such an order as punishment for the MTA failing to meet the limits on overcrowding set in a consent decree signed with the Bus Riders Union, he said it would be “a very dramatic problem.”

The agency would have to shift money from other programs, including the highway and rail systems and perhaps municipal bus lines, to pay the cost.

Despite the MTA’s stated commitment to improve bus service in the coming year, the budget is certain to widen the differences between the MTA and the Bus Riders Union, since it also proposes the first increase in bus and rail fares since 1995.

If the MTA board agrees to the increase, the basic $1.35 bus and rail fare would increase to $1.45, the price of a discount token would rise a nickel to 95 cents, the weekly pass would increase by $1 to $12, and the popular monthly pass would go up $3 to $45.

Burke said the increases, which would raise $10.2 million a year, are allowed by the consent decree and do not require approval from the court.

But Eric Mann, leader of the Bus Riders Union, said the group will oppose the price hikes, which he said show the agency’s “typical contempt for the bus riders.”

Mann said “the consent decree is a series of interrelated promises. They have broken every other promise, so therefore they can’t raise the fare,” he insisted.

Since the agency does not intend to abide by Bliss’ order, Mann said, “all attention turns to the authority of the courts. Will the courts enforce the order?”

The budget proposal, which requires public hearings and MTA board action, is a realization of many of the goals Burke set when he became MTA chief in the summer of 1997, including restoring the agency to fiscal health.

The spending plan contemplates the start of rapid bus service with fewer stops and better service on at least two routes: along Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley and between the Eastside and Westside.

A summary of the plan shows that bus operations, purchases and new facilities will consume $932 million, or 36.7% of the budget, about the same percentage as two years ago, but significantly more dollars because of growth in the overall budget.

Highway and other improvements will amount to $530 million, or 20.9% of the budget.

With subway construction winding down, rail construction and operating expenses will require $520 million, or 20.5% of the MTA’s spending, a smaller share of the budget.

And payments on the MTA’s $7 billion in outstanding debt, including principal and interest, will consume $327 million, or 12.9% of the budget.

The municipal bus lines run by smaller operators would receive $187 million, or 7.4% of the agency’s spending.

The Metrolink commuter trains will require $39 million from the MTA, or 1.6%.