BUSES RUN RAGGED; RAIL-LOVING MTA'S ONE-TRACK MIND LEAVES FLEET IN TATTERS.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

Los Angeles' public buses - hailed in 1984 for efficiently moving masses in and out of Olympic events - are in such disrepair today that mechanics say they can barely keep enough rolling to meet day-to-day needs.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's bus fleet - plagued by age and mechanical problems - is stretched beyond the city's daily capacity, making buses chronically late and overcrowded.

The deterioration has occurred as the transit agency has poured about $6 billion into subway and light-rail lines that carry one-tenth as many passengers as buses.

Today, the MTA is still running hundreds of buses that ferried Olympic crowds 14 years ago.

Some buses have logged 900,000 miles; 269 buses bought in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president, are still on the road.

As recently as last summer, nearly half the fleet was beyond retirement age - 12 years or 500,000 miles. In recent months, an influx of new buses has eased that level, but it still is far worse than a decade ago.

The fleet is almost a fifth smaller than it was in 1985. A federal judge, finding buses overcrowded and service poor, has demanded a fleet expansion and upgrade.

Fares have more than doubled since 1985 from 50 cents to $1.35.

Not surprisingly, ridership has plummeted - down 27 percent or 134 million riders.

``Fiscal year 1985 was the high point. It's been consistently downhill almost every year since,'' said Tom Rubin, former treasurer of the Southern California Rapid Transit District. The RTD ran the bus service before merging with the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission to form the MTA five years ago.

As the fleet aged and fell into disrepair, transit officials pursued a countywide rail system that carries 120,000 passengers daily on 6.5 miles of subway and 40 miles of light rail.

``This bus service stinks,'' said Cathy Winchester, who takes the bus between her Westlake home and a Van Nuys medical clinic. ``Every line breaks down. And when they do show up, they're at least 15 minutes late.''

Aging fleet

The bus fleet suffered as the MTA focused on rail, diverting some money that could have been spent on bus system improvements to an all-out push for subway and light-rail construction.

``It's old, and it's not where we would like it,'' said Richard Hunt, MTA deputy executive officer for operations. ``We would like it to be more reliable. We're not happy with that.''

The average age of an MTA bus is ``exceedingly high,'' Hunt said.

The average age is a little more than 9 years, down from more than 10 last summer. Ideally, the average age of the fleet would be 6 years, he said.

During the late 1980s, the agency bought few new buses because of the huge bus buys made between 1980 and 1984, because of clean-air complications and because of rail's drain on the bankbook.

``New money was almost entirely directed to building rail lines,'' Rubin said. ``There wasn't the slightest consideration to use that money for buses. That funding went to rail.''

Financing rail

Although MTA officials have said many kinds of funds could be spent only on rail, that wasn't the case, Rubin said.

One key area was so-called New Starts money, which has been used to pay about half the cost of Los Angeles' Red Line projects.

While MTA staff had long termed that money as ``New Rail Starts'' funding, it could have been used for bus projects, said Bruce Frame, spokesman for the Federal Transit Administration.

``The federal government has always said these are local decisions,'' he said.

``New Rail Starts'' money was used for bus projects in Houston and Pittsburgh.

Even in the one federal grant category where the MTA has regularly sought bus money, Section 9, it asked that its share of those funds go partially to rail, records show.

The agency received $90.6 million for the first segment of Red Line subway construction from Section 9, and $11.9 million for the L.A. Car, the light-rail vehicle contract the MTA is now partially canceling because it is mothballing Pasadena Blue Line construction.

``The MTA decided to spend as much as it possibly could for rail,'' Rubin said.

That $102.5 million in federal money, combined with a local MTA match, could have bought roughly 369 buses.

Maintenance nightmare

Maintenance problems were so severe at one inner-city bus division that an emergency management team was installed in late December to turn around the operation. Both Division 5 and the nearby Division 2 had failed annual safety inspections by the California Highway Patrol in the previous two months.

The MTA has been overhauling its maintenance programs, shifting mechanics and lines to ease the load on some heavily used inner-city fleets.

Ken Barbara, a bus mechanic who worked most of the past two decades in the MTA's Sun Valley division, said the problems extend far beyond inner-city divisions.

``It's a joke,'' Barbara said. ``All the buses are coming in with defects. They just don't have enough people to maintain them all.''

The state of the fleet is frustrating to some mechanics who struggle to keep up with repairs.

``These politicians want miracles,'' said one mechanic in the San Fernando Valley who spoke on condition of anonymity. ``We're running the oldest buses in the country.''

Riders are fed up as well.

Many buses are ``beat up,'' said Adonai Abraham, a regular rider from Van Nuys. ``They are very old, many of them. When it rains, their coin boxes don't seem to work.''

Concerns about the state of the fleet rose anew Jan. 17 when a bus failed to stop on the connector ramp between the 101 and 405 freeways in Sherman Oaks. The driver eventually drove the bus into a tree to stop it; 26 of 54 people on board were injured.

The 1984 bus had more than 687,000 miles on it. Its brakes had been checked twice as part of routine inspections in the previous week, according to MTA records.

The rubber diaphragms that sealed off the air-brake chambers had been in place for just over 100,000 miles, which is when they are supposed to be replaced. The brake linings had been replaced about a month earlier.

An MTA mechanic who spoke on condition of anonymity said the maintenance records showed little unusual.

``There was really nothing in there that's obvious,'' the MTA mechanic said. ``It's just old.''

The California Highway Patrol is still investigating the accident.

The fuel problem

Even some of the newest buses have become maintenance nightmares, particularly the 333 alcohol-fueled buses bought between 1988 and 1994.

Prodded by clean-air regulators and advocates, the agency invested heavily - and quickly - in the low-emission buses when they were the only available alternative to dirty diesel buses. At one point, the MTA owned 80 percent of the nation's methanol/ethanol fleet. But the agency discovered that methanol, the original fuel for the buses, so badly corroded engines that they had to be replaced every 45,000 miles, compared to every 200,000 miles for diesel.

When engines were reprogrammed for ethanol, the fix proved even more of a disaster, with engines breaking down every 25,000 miles.

The alcohol-fueled buses have been so dogged with reliability problems that nearly half of them, about 145, have been left parked with burned-out engines in a Long Beach maintenance yard while the agency dickers over warranties with the manufacturer.

``When you're talking about 15 percent of the fleet, that's very problematic, because we only have 20 percent as spares,'' Hunt said.

The agency now wants to convert the parked buses to so-called ``clean diesel'' at a cost of $13,000 per bus, despite strong objections from environmentalists and regulators.

Other newer buses, such as the Flxible Metro buses bought in the late 1980s, also have been dogged by reliability issues, particularly with their wheelchair lifts. Flxible has gone out of business, forcing the MTA to custom manufacture even parts such as mufflers at great expense.

Forced by a 1996 consent decree in a federal civil rights lawsuit over service, the MTA has begun to improve its bus system and begun buying new buses. Its acquisition plan would eliminate all buses past retirement age by 2010.

But even some agency officials believe the MTA is moving too slowly because of the high maintenance costs associated with an older fleet.

Hunt said he would prefer to see the agency speed up its bus purchase schedule so it can retire all its 12-year-old vehicles by 2004.

Rubin says finding more money for new buses is the only way to solve the rickety fleet's problems.

``The answer is you've got to spend more money on buses real quick,'' Rubin said. ``There's absolutely no substitute to buying new buses. The fleet's going to continue to age for another decade otherwise.''

BUSES AT LARGE

Here's a snapshot of the state of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's bus system taken on specific days, nine years apart. The statistics show the MTA has fewer buses on the road, and that those buses are older and more prone to breakdown.

October 19, 1988 July 23, 1997

Buses owned 2,957 2,416

Buses operating 1,998 1,566

Buses needed for

all service 1,959 1,650

Enough for all needs? yes no

Fiscal Year 1989 Fiscal Year 1997

Average fleet age

in years (x) 8.37 10.12

Percentage of fleet

at retirement age (xx) 19 45

(x) Includes relatively new, breakdown-prone alcohol-fueled buses. Fleet is somewhat older without those often inoperable buses.

(xx) The federal government will pay 80 percent of the cost of replacing a bus that is at least 12 years old or has 500,000 miles of use.

1989 1995 1997

Miles between

serious breakdowns (xxx) 3,871 6,362 3,662

Miles between

total roadcalls 1,135 981 864

(xxx) So-called ``chargeable roadcalls'' that require a lengthy delay and repair.

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Chart

PHOTO (color) Manuel Sanchez, who says the wait for buses is sometimes too long, watches in Sherman Oaks for his ride back home to Westwood.

Gus Ruelas/Daily News

CHART: BUSES AT LARGE (see text)

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