EDITORIAL : SPIKE THE RAIL LINE THE REASON FOUNDATION LOOKED FOR LOGIC IN MTA'S TRANSIT BLUEPRINT AND FOUND.

A new study reinforces what we've been saying all along: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's tunnel of dreams - build a subway and they will ride - keeps coming up short.

And taxpayers keep coming up shortchanged.

The Santa Monica-based Reason Foundation found that for every taxpayer dollar spent on bus riders, $64 will be spent subsidizing rail passengers. The MTA's stubborn insistence on building a $10 billion light rail and subway system - and giving short shrift to better bus service - has squandered taxpayer money, the report charged.

Every work day, more than 94 percent of all Los Angeles mass transit users - about 1 million passengers - ride MTA buses. In return, MTA passengers can expect to ride the most overcrowded buses in the nation, the study said.

This is not without a toll.

Stressed to the breaking point, drivers have at times taken out their tensions on passengers, as the Daily News reported Monday. Nearly 100 MTA bus drivers have been implicated in passenger beatings, assaults on motorists and other on-duty crimes.

Conversely, the MTA's 3,845 male and female drivers fall victim to violence themselves in the largely unpatrolled buses.

As the Daily News reported June 2, drivers have been pummeled with broomsticks, skateboards, beer bottles and hatchets, and have had caustic chemicals, tear gas and urine sprayed on them.

While security is lagging on buses, the MTA has its attention focused elsewhere - on its rail program, which is based on false assumptions and overly hopeful economics, according to the new report.

Reason Foundation President Robert Poole doesn't mince words in drawing his conclusion: ``Clearly MTA officials believe they can dig their way out of growth by using rail. They're wrong.''

MTA defends the rail system as necessary in building a multifaceted transit system. Necessary for whom? The 1 million riders who jostle for space each day they board the bus? The 94 percent who rely on buses to get them to their jobs, to schools, to the market, on time and unharmed?

The foundation offered a sensible alternative: The MTA could immediately increase the bus fleet just by spending on buses the $417 million the agency has earmarked for planning.

If that sounds unreasonable, perhaps MTA officials should try riding the subway to work sometime. Let's see how far they get.