BUS PLANS MILES AND MILLIONS APART.

Byline: Douglas Haberman Daily News Staff Writer

The MTA and the Bus Riders Union offered clashing proposals Wednesday to reduce chronic bus overcrowding in Los Angeles.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's plan calls for the agency to spend less than $200 million in funds it hasn't previously agreed to use. The union's plan calls for $830 million in new spending.

Both plans are in response to a court order that requires the county transit agency to reduce the crowding of passengers on its buses.

MTA Chief Executive Officer Julian Burke said the agency can reach the target by putting 130 more buses on the streets during peak hours, in addition to about 1,800 buses it already operates during the busiest times; improving the reliability of the agency's breakdown-prone buses and keeping them running on schedule through improved supervision; and scheduling vacations so there is a driver available for every bus scheduled to run.

``I do want to keep repeating that this agency has made a substantial commitment to reducing overcrowding,'' Burke said Wednesday.

The agency's plan would cost about $785 million through 2003. The bulk of the money, about $595 million, is to buy buses under a schedule the MTA board already has approved - although in concept only - to deliver 2,095 new buses by 2004.

The remainder of the outlays would go for various efforts, including hiring more dispatchers and maintenance instructors.

Under the MTA plan, peak-hour buses would be added to a number of bus lines, including several serving the San Fernando Valley.

However, Bus Riders Union organizers described the MTA plan as woefully inadequate.

Just to replace buses older than federal standards recommend, union leaders call for 333 more buses in addition to the 2,095 buses the agency plans to buy. Also, the group wants the MTA to provide an additional 553 buses to expand the fleet and further reduce crowding.

``They need to purchase these buses now,'' said union organizer Ted Robertson, citing the year or more it takes for ordered buses to arrive.

The Bus Riders Union said the MTA must lease 348 new buses until the ones on order are delivered.

``We don't have enough physical space to garage that number of buses,'' said Dana Woodbury, the MTA deputy director who oversees the agency's compliance with the court order.

The Bus Riders Union proposal includes the hiring of 112 new drivers and 249 new mechanics.

The total price tag on the union plan is $830 million through 2004. That is above and beyond the $817 million the 2,095 new buses would cost.

Bus Riders Union organizers said the MTA would get the money by taking it from other projects, including the light-rail Pasadena Blue Line and the Alameda Corridor freight-rail line.

The two sides have filed their respective plans with Washington, D.C., attorney Donald Bliss, a court-appointed arbiter who oversees enactment of the court order.

Both sides are assembling legal briefs to buttress their plans. The briefs must be filed with Bliss by Feb. 18, and he can rule on them any time after that.

The Bus Riders Union has also put together a five-year plan, also called for under the court order, for expanding countywide bus service to more educational, job and health care centers.

It incorporates a tentative MTA proposal for a 16-route system of ``rapid buses'' that could carry traffic-signal override technology. But it also envisions a network of buses using the county's freeway system and community shuttles taking passengers to and from the freeway network. This plan's first phase would cost $1.2 billion, said union organizer Kikanza Ramsey.

The MTA sent a letter to Bliss outlining its counterproposal, which is to continue service and possibly expand service on pilot bus routes now in operation or slated to be put into operation if they are found to meet the court order's goals.

The Bus Riders Union and other civil rights groups in September 1994 filed a lawsuit claiming the MTA discriminated against poor and minority residents by neglecting its bus system in favor of subway and light rail construction. To settle the suit, the MTA agreed to a court order, called a consent decree, requiring overcrowding reduction and expansion of service.