EDITORIAL : OUTRAGE METER: 9.7; L.A. TAKEN FOR A RIDE; PUBLIC PAYS MORE AND MORE, BUT GETS LESS AND LESS FROM MTA.

THIS is no way to run a railroad - or a bus system.

After all the billions of dollars that have been spent on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, its customers - the public - soon will be getting even less service from it and paying more for it.

Trying to get a handle on the runaway agency, interim chief executive officer Julian Burke has announced that the MTA cannot afford to continue its current transit services at current prices.

Burke proposes to balance the MTA operating budget by raising fares for rail transit and by cutting bus service.

He may be right when he says there's no practical alternative to those steps. That more than anything shows the seriousness of the problems at the MTA.

The public has spent billions, about $1.5 billion generated from the San Fernando Valley alone, and has a right to know where all that federal, state and local money went when it comes to this: Paying more for less.

There may be only one way to get the answer, and that is through the grand jury process. District Attorney Gil Garcetti and the U.S. Attorney's office have the power to impanel grand juries to get to the bottom of the MTA stench.

As the Daily News reported Sunday, the MTA is on a fast track to bankruptcy. It will go broke within a decade if MTA officials go ahead with plans to build costly rail lines from downtown to Pasadena and to east and west Los Angeles. Even if the MTA halts all new rail construction now, it will face a serious deficit for years to come.

Why? Because the MTA has been on a five-year spending spree to meet political demands - and borrowing to cover its interest payments.

Burke, hired to turn the MTA around, is proposing some drastic measures just to balance this year's $1.1 billion operations budget. He suggests that the MTA raise rail fares by more than one-third, lay off workers and eliminate some weekend and late-night bus service.

Also, some bus routes would be shortened and fewer buses would run on some lines - doubling the waiting time at some bus stops. Some people will find that unacceptable and will resort to other modes of transportation.

So the predictable outcome will be fewer passengers as a result of both the bus cuts and the higher rail fares.

But wait a minute. The MTA is under a consent decree - a court order - to improve bus service, and Burke is revealing the grim truth that the MTA can't afford to continue what it already is doing.

And the MTA board hasn't yet shown the political courage to halt all new rail construction, which is necessary immediately to keep the MTA from running out of money and throwing the bus system into worse chaos.

For the MTA to have deteriorated to this point is deplorable. That is why there should be a grand jury inquiry to account for every cent of public funds, so the public can learn what happened to the money.

The public has every right to demand of MTA leaders and officials: How dare you cut our bus service?

The public has every right to demand that the MTA stop all new rail projects now.

And the public has every right to an accounting, so the millions of people who depend on mass transit and the millions of people who pay taxes to support mass transit can find out how they were robbed.

CAPTION(S):

2 charts

Chart: (1) MTA`s choices: Continuation of all current rail projects or (2) Immediate suspension of all current rail