DRY RUNS RAISE BUSWAY FEARS CAR DRIVERS FAIL TO STAY OFF PATH.

Byline: Lisa Mascaro Staff Writer

Raising concerns about safety on the new Metro Orange Line busway, MTA officials reported Thursday that bus drivers have faced many close calls with motorists who are running traffic lights and getting into the path of oncoming buses during practice runs.

With little more than a week to go before the busway opens for business, Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials urged San Fernando Valley motorists to pay attention to the new rules of the road.

After questioning all the bus drivers working the route, MTA Valley General Manager Richard Hunt said he has heard the same thing:

``Everyone I've talked to - and I've talked to them all - has said they had close calls.

``I was on the bus yesterday. It was almost the same issue. Someone cut in front of the bus. The individual wasn't even watching. They were on the cell phone. ... These are the kinds of things we're experiencing on a daily basis.''

In creating the $330 million Orange Line across the Valley, from the North Hollywood subway station to Warner Center, crews tore up more than 30 intersections along the 14-mile route.

Motorists who've crisscrossed Valley streets for years have been forced to figure out the new system.

Resident Claire Tucci said she didn't even see the brand new traffic light with its red, no-right-turn arrow when she came westbound on Topham Avenue to the Tampa Avenue intersection as testing was getting under way last month.

She proceeded to make her right turn - against the red arrow - and was promptly pulled over.

The officer gave her a $350 ticket.

``He started screaming at me: 'Did you see that? You almost got hit by that bus?' I didn't see the bus. I didn't even know they were doing dry runs,'' she said.

Tucci, a mother of two from Tarzana, said she never previously got a traffic ticket in her 25 years of driving, but didn't see the new sign. She thinks more protections are needed.

``I was shocked, and I'm a very conscientious driver,'' said Tucci, who warned all her PTA friends about the incident. ``Elderly people, people talking on their cells phones, teenagers - they're not going to see that.''

To get motorists to pay attention, the Sheriff's Department has issued more than 500 citations since buses started their practice runs in September.

A no-turn-on-red rule is one of the changes at many of the east-west streets. That's to prevent drivers from crossing over the busway path and colliding with a 30-ton bus.

Motorists also are faced with ``Keep Clear'' signs painted in the street - much the way rail crossings are marked - to stop drivers from sitting in the busway's path. There are also flashing ``Bus'' signals at some streets.

So far, there has been only one minor accident on the Orange Line: A bicyclist mistakenly rode into a stopped bus, Hunt said.

But residents and critics have repeatedly questioned why the busway won't be getting crossing gates like those that railroads have.

MTA officials have long said the streets don't need gates because the buses don't operate the same way trains do. There's no regulation requiring gates.

``We felt these were intersections, vehicular intersections, and we would use the tools that are used throughout the city,'' said the MTA's Valley planning director, Kevin Michel. ``It's a change, no doubt.''

But the lack of crossing gates has been an issue in the Miami-Dade County area since the nation's first busway opened there nearly a decade ago, an official in Florida said.

The Miami-Dade transit agency is now studying whether gates would be feasible, a spokesman said Thursday.

A separate 2003 study of the Miami area system by the National Bus Rapid Transit Institute at the University of South Florida recommended automatic gates or grade-separated crossings as a long-term strategy after 67 crashes were reported in less than four years.

``People were essentially running red lights, ... violating no-right-on-red (signs) all the time,'' said Dennis Hinebaugh, director of institute. ``If you had railroad-type crossings, you couldn't do any better than that.''

Van Nuys resident Philip Wilt was heading north on Sepulveda Boulevard this week, waiting at the signal to cross the Metro Orange Line, when he saw not one, not two, but three cars mistakenly pull into the bus-only lane.

Two of the cars kept going, but the third car made a U-turn back onto the street. Luckily no buses were coming at the time.

``Only a few days to go and (the Orange Line) is going to be operating, and there sure are some circumstances here that could make some deadly accidents,'' said Wilt, a retired jeweler.

``It caused concern to me.''

Hunt said his veteran drivers are pros, trained to handle big-city driving with all its obstacles, but they can only do so much.

``We just need to continue to get people aware that this is going to be an everyday occurrence,'' said Hunt. ``We want them to ride it, but we want them to be careful.

``It's a big vehicle. Vehicles like this can't stop on a dime.''