MTA FILES MOTION AGAINST BUS ORDER : COMPLIANCE TOO COSTLY, SAYS BURKE.

Byline: Douglas Haberman Daily News Staff Writer

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has filed a legal motion against an order that requires the MTA to buy 532 buses and hire additional drivers and mechanics to reduce passenger crowding, officials said Saturday.

The order's requirements, say the motion, ``are hugely wasteful and impractical.'' The ``added burdens would turn the MTA solely into a bus operator, in violation of its highway and rail obligations.''

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board had already made a commitment to buy 2,095 new buses by 2004 at a projected cost of about $1 billion.

The purchases are mostly meant to replace its aging fleet, which is prone to frequent breakdowns that reduce the number of buses on the streets and lead to crowding.

The March order by federal court-appointed Special Master Donald Bliss was for 532 new buses above and beyond the 2,095 buses.

Told by MTA Chief Executive Officer Julian Burke that compliance with Bliss' order would cost $800 million over five years, the MTA board flatly rejected the ruling. Burke has since revised the cost estimate to $400 million over five years.

The MTA board voted behind closed doors on March 25 to expand its bus fleet by 160 buses - using 160 of the 2,095 replacement buses - and to earmark $170 million to operate the 160 buses.

Going one step further now, the MTA motion said Bliss' order was excessive, overstepped his legal authority, and would strip power from the agency and cut into other programs that state and federal law require it to carry out.

The MTA's new motion asks Bliss to rescind the portions of his order requiring the 532 buses and the lease of 277 buses as soon as possible to reduce crowding immediately.

Burke said Saturday that the order would require spending funds ``way out of proportion to the problem (that Bliss) is attempting to address.''

``I'm not sure he even understands the magnitude of his order and what it does to this organization,'' Burke said. ``We need to make that clear to him.''

Burke said that the MTA is facing a $144 million operating shortfall over the next five years. Bliss' order would impose additional operating costs, Burke said.

The Bus Riders Union and civil rights groups have another 10 days to file their response with Bliss.

The legal battle is one of many in a long-running war over bus service. An apparent peace was reached in 1996 in the form of a court-sanctioned settlement, called a consent decree.

Bliss oversees MTA compliance with the agreement, which headed off a civil rights trial on allegations the MTA discriminated against its predominantly poor and minority bus ridership by pumping billions of dollars into a subway and light rail system that served far fewer riders than its neglected bus system.

The MTA motion says it's now in ``substantial compliance with the consent decree,'' doing the best it can to steer resources to the bus system to reduce the number of passengers standing during peak hours.

The Bus Riders Union contends the MTA is not doing nearly enough and had welcomed Bliss' March order even though it fell short of what the union sought.

Though he hadn't seen the MTA motion, Eric Mann, a leader of the union, was critical Friday afternoon of the MTA's decision not to follow Bliss' March order. The agency is already far behind in complying with consent decree crowding-reduction targets, he said.

``What's to appeal?'' he said of Bliss' order. ``It's a compromise ruling. The core issue is the fleet must be expanded by 532 buses in order to reduce overcrowding.''

Mann said the decision to challenge the March order can only be motivated by the MTA board's continuing interest in funding expensive rail projects, including the light rail Pasadena Blue Line.

But the MTA motion argues that the special master has no right to compel the MTA to meet the consent decree's crowding-reduction targets in any specific way, saying the consent decree explicitly leaves that up to the MTA.

As for its charge that the March order is wasteful, the MTA motion says Bliss wants 59 buses plus 11 spares added to the fleet on the basis of one single instance in nine months when the agency was in violation of the crowding limit allowed under the consent decree.

The 39-page motion, with 12 additional pages of appendices, has six different attorneys' names on it, including two from the County Counsel's Office and four outside attorneys from three firms.

AT A GLANCE

A few of the arguments in the MTA's motion asking Special Master Donald Bliss to revoke his order that the MTA buy 532 buses and hire additional drivers and mechanics in the next few years to reduce passenger crowding:

``The challenged two paragraphs of the order destroy the MTA's discretion in meeting (the crowding-reduction) objectives that the consent decree meticulously preserved. Those provisions are irreconcilable with the MTA's legal obligations to the federal government, to the state of California and to persons other than the plaintiffs (i.e., bus riders) who rely on the county's transportation systems.''

``The effect of the special master's proposals includes damage to other elements of the Los Angeles County transportation systems and dramatically reduces the benefits currently being delivered or planned to be delivered to the wide variety of transit-dependent persons, including poor and minority constituents and persons with disabilities, that MTA is obligated to serve.''

``. . . the current action of the special master wrests control of the (MTA) from its duly-constituted board and management and forces it to abrogate its other responsibilities.''

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BOX: AT A GLANCE (see text)