MTA BOSS WANTS NEW DIESEL BUSES; ALTERNATIVE-FUEL MODELS BREAKING DOWN TOO FREQUENTLY, BURKE SAYS.

Byline: Douglas Haberman Daily News Staff Writer

Despite Los Angeles' record of having some of the nation's worst air, the head of the MTA released a proposal Wednesday to buy diesel buses to replace some of the cleaner-burning alternative-fuel buses that are constantly breaking down.

The proposal has not gone over well with air-pollution watchdogs, even if the diesel buses are known to be two to three times cleaner than standard diesels.

``We are concerned it would make it more difficult for us to meet our air-quality standards,'' said Bill Kelly, spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District in Diamond Bar.

However, Chief Executive Officer Julian Burke of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said the purchase is needed to solve crowding on buses, a problem the transit agency is under federal orders to correct.

``This is not a radical proposal,'' Burke said. ``This agency is so far ahead of every other public transportation agency in the country'' in the size of its alternative-fuel bus fleet and in the percentage those buses represent within the overall fleet. The MTA, he said, will remain in the forefront even under his new proposal.

The MTA plans to buy 2,095 buses by 2004 - nearly 800 more than originally planned - to improve the reliability of its aging fleet and help cut overcrowding, Burke said.

But because the agency has been hampered by the poor quality of its alternative-fuel buses, Burke will ask the MTA board Monday to scrap its 6-year-old policy of buying only those buses in favor of one allowing half of all new bus purchases to be ``clean diesel'' models.

Kelly said it was late in the process for the air-quality district to be learning of the diesel bus proposal. And because diesel buses remain in operation for so many years, the AQMD has concerns about the long-term performance of the emission control equipment on the clean-diesel buses, he said.

Burke's overall proposal, costing an estimated $700 million to $750 million, would bring down the average age of buses in the fleet from 9 years to 6 by 2004. A younger fleet should be a more reliable fleet, he said.

Most of the money would come from federal transportation dollars, expected to total more than $800 million through 2004, Burke said.

The agency has put 516 compressed natural-gas buses into operation since April 1995, and this fleet has experienced a number of mechanical problems, from fuel-system failures to faulty clutches to exhaust-system defects, according to a Sept. 16 status report.

The agency experienced constant breakdowns with its 333-bus ethanol-methanol fleet, finally forcing it to take them all off the street and convert them, at the rate of about 15 per month, to clean-diesel buses. About one-third have been converted so far.

In addition, natural-gas buses cost $40,000 to $50,000 more than clean-diesel buses, and the MTA's average annual operating costs for a natural-gas bus are $15,000 to $20,000 more than for a clean-diesel bus.

``We have enough buses on the roads to meet ridership demand'' without causing the overcrowding that violates the consent decree that resolved a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of riders, Burke said in a telephone interview.

``If we meet our schedules, we have enough service,'' he said. ``We cannot meet our schedules because the buses are not reliable.''

County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who sits on the MTA board along with his four fellow supervisors, issued a statement Wednesday criticizing Burke's proposal because of its likely effect on air quality.

``It retards progress toward a 21st century of cleaner air by unleashing hundreds of carcinogenic, diesel-belching buses onto the streets of Los Angeles County,'' Antonovich said. ``In attempting to overturn existing board policy, the chief executive officer is breaking faith with the AQMD and going AWOL in the war against smog.''

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said in an interview it is good that Burke's plan focuses on expanding and improving the bus system, but he stressed his desire to see a net reduction in emissions caused by MTA buses. ``If we're not both improving the quality of the fleet and reducing our emissions, there's something wrong,'' he said.

Pollution is one matter, but overcrowding is the issue that has dogged the MTA in recent weeks. At least one bus-rider advocate said Burke's new plan wouldn't do enough to eliminate the problem.

MTA critics have called on the agency to buy 2,900 buses in the next five years, 1,600 of them in the next two. Burke's report to the board said the MTA has the staffing to receive only about 400 new buses a year. The agency installs its own fare boxes and radios, and services the buses before putting them on the road. In addition, the market couldn't supply that many buses in two years, he said.

Attorney Constance Rice, who represented bus riders in the federal civil-rights lawsuit that led to the 1996 consent decree, said the agency has ``decimated'' its mechanics staff through layoffs. ``You can't gut the staff, then say, Whoops

We can't accept all the buses we need to reduce overcrowding,'' she said.

Bus Riders Union officials, who have been waging a ``no seat, no fare'' campaign to cast a spotlight on the numbers of standing passengers, were meeting Wednesday to study Burke's proposal and declined comment.