Cost to Run MTA Buses Similar to Other Cities 

In its tough stance against drivers union, agency says expenses 
are out of line, but survey suggests otherwise.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Metropolitan Transportation Authority spends more than any other Southern California transit operator to run a bus, but neither its hourly operating cost nor its bus drivers' pay are out of line with those of other big cities, the Los Angeles Times reported.

A survey by The Times found that the hourly operating cost of MTA's buses is not significantly higher than transit agencies in New York, Boston or San Francisco.

Moreover, five big-city transit districts pay their experienced bus drivers a higher hourly wage than MTA does. Experienced bus drivers earn more per hour in Boston, the Silicon Valley, New York, San Francisco and Washington than they do in Los Angeles. The wage scale in Boston is the highest, with the most senior bus driver earning $23.37 an hour. Full-time MTA bus drivers at the top of the pay scale earned $21.72 an hour before the strike.

The MTA, whose workers are 11 days into a crippling walkout, operates the nation's second-largest bus system, with 2,000 buses running on 200 routes serving a vast area, including tough low-income urban neighborhoods and affluent suburbs.

The largest transit operator in the country, the New York City transit system, spends $98.61 an hour to operate its buses, a nickel less than the $98.66 spent by the MTA. San Francisco's transit operator spends between $94.72 and $100.48 an hour, depending on the type of bus, electric or diesel.

In Boston, the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority spends $91.90 an hour, even though it pays the highest hourly wage for an experienced bus driver of any of the cities surveyed.

The Chicago Transit Authority spends significantly less than the Los Angeles or New York transit systems, in part because of its lower wage scale. The Chicago system has taken steps to reduce operating costs in recent years by eliminating marginal routes, offering early retirement to higher-paid drivers and using less expensive part-time drivers on weekends and holidays, said Dennis Anonsike, senior vice president and treasurer of the transit authority.

The Chicago transit agency is negotiating a new contract with its unions.

In arguing that MTA's costs are far out of line with those of other transit districts, Mayor Richard Riordan and other MTA directors have cited the Santa Monica municipal bus system, which runs its Big Blue Bus for $65 an hour. The top pay for a bus driver in Santa Monica is $18.58 an hour.

But Brian Taylor, associate director of UCLA's Institute of Transportation Studies, said larger and more urban public transportation systems nationally have what he calls a "diseconomy of scale," meaning they are inherently costlier than their smaller-scale counterparts.

That is true for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they are more likely to have pricier work rules established decades ago, when reliable public transit was more of a necessity, he said. Larger systems also see their costs rise because they service far more people, Taylor said.

As the MTA strike drags on, transit agency officials say the cost for labor and benefits accounts for 70% of the hourly cost of operating a bus.

However, the picture that emerges from an examination of the MTA's budget is one of an agency with a multitude of expenses, not just those associated with its unionized workers. MTA's budget shows the United Transportation Union, which represents the striking bus and train operators, accounts for about 40% of the total hourly cost of running a bus. Maintenance of buses and facilities, including the workers who do it, represents about 23% of the hourly cost.

The agency's figures show another 7.8% goes for overhead, 6.2% goes for management and administration, 4% goes for security and 3.6% for insurance.

Add to that the cost of removing graffiti, cleaning buses, fixing wheelchair lifts, replacing windows and painting vehicles.

MTA officials refused to be interviewed about the cost of operations, citing a ban on press statements while contract talks are in progress.

Before the ban was imposed last weekend, MTA chief financial officer Richard Brumbaugh would not discuss in detail how the agency estimated the operating expense per hour, though he said that approximately two-thirds of the cost was associated with labor and benefits.

At three recent news conferences, MTA board members have cited the high hourly cost of running a bus to justify why they have taken a hard line against the drivers in contract talks. MTA has been insisting on $23 million in reductions, called "cost savings," as the price for a new labor agreement with the drivers union.

They point to Santa Monica's system as a model of efficiency. However, there are night and day differences between the small Santa Monica bus line and the massive and costly MTA.

The Santa Monica Big Blue Bus operates about 166 buses on 13 lines, mostly on the Westside. It has an operating budget of $30.7 million. The MTA's operating budget exceeds $800 million a year.

The MTA runs the country's biggest fleet of expensive-to-maintain clean-fueled natural gas buses in a region with one of the country's worst air pollution problems.

And the MTA signed a federal court consent decree that requires it to reduce overcrowding and improve bus service. The agreement was reached to settle a federal civil rights case filed by bus rider advocates, who alleged that the transit agency poured billions of dollars into building expensive rail systems while allowing the bus system to deteriorate.

The Santa Monica system does not operate under a federal court consent decree. It does not serve the disadvantaged areas that MTA does.

Even without major concessions from unions, MTA officials say they have been able to reduce the agency's bus operating cost by almost $10 an hour in recent years, in part due to lower maintenance expenses as new buses replace the older fleet.

The agency's budget says that "approximately 70% of the [operating] expenses are for labor and fringe benefits. The majority of the labor costs include employees represented by the United Transportation Union, Amalgamated Transit Union, Transportation Communications Union, and American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees. Fuel and materials represents another 16% of expenses with the remainder of the expenses being comprised of services, purchased transportation and general and administrative expenses."

The MTA's budget for the current fiscal year contains a detailed breakdown of elements that contribute to the hourly cost of operating a bus. The overall cost of service operated directly by MTA employees is pegged at $100.15 for every hour a bus is in revenue service--carrying passengers.

The MTA also contracts with private firms to run buses on less heavily used lines at a significantly lower cost of $54.68 per hour.

When the lower-cost contract service is included, the overall cost of MTA bus service drops to the $98.66 figure cited in news conferences and official statements. MTA chief executive officer Julian Burke has said his goal in the negotiations with the drivers, mechanics and clerks union is to cut $2 an hour from that figure.

Union leaders balk at the agency asking their members to give up overtime and accept work rule changes as the price tag for a new contract.

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MTA Strike Taking a Heavy Toll on Elderly, Disabled 

Those most reliant on buses and trains are facing monumental problems in getting around, if they can at all. Talks are held, but no resolution is in sight.

LOS ANGELES -- The Metropolitan Transportation Authority strike entered its second workweek Monday, and nowhere has the strike had more devastating consequences than among transit-dependent elderly and disabled riders, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Whether it's getting to work, making a physicians' appointment or just catching up with grocery shopping, the MTA's 81,000 regular elderly, blind and disabled bus and rail passengers are facing monumental problems getting around.

Blind students at the Braille Institute in east Hollywood are walking across town with guide dogs. Bertha Poole, a quadriplegic Long Beach woman, spent a weekend in bed because her transit-dependent home care attendant couldn't get to her house to get her up. Suzanne Paggi has been weaving in and out of traffic in the San Fernando Valley in her electric wheelchair, traveling seven miles each way to her job.

Despite the misery, there appears to be no end in sight for the 11-day-old strike. MTA management and the drivers union, along with state mediators, met Monday at the Pasadena Hilton. Operating under a news blackout, the two sides seemed to be mostly engaged in one-on-one discussions. Little progress was reported.

The shutdown of MTA rail and bus operations is having an ever-deepening impact on the system's 450,000 weekday riders.

Fears are that the strike's impact will grow even worse. Already it has cost transit-dependent workers jobs and hurt businesses along heavily traveled bus routes. County health centers and community free clinics report that 30% or more of their patients are missing appointments. Students at public schools and community colleges are missing classes or showing up late.

The aged, blind and disabled have relied on public transit here in increasing numbers since the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 and federal mandates gave them easier access to buses and trains so they could reach jobs and recreation, among other things. Now the strike has slammed the door to that world for some of the disabled--or at least it has created much more work for those least able to cover the distance to stores, workplaces and physician's offices.

"This is a population that obviously depends on public transportation," said attorney Dan Tokaji, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. "Many of them are not able to drive or can't afford cars. For them, public transportation is not a luxury but a necessity."

Tokaji was one of the attorneys who forced the MTA into settling a lawsuit seeking to guarantee bus access to passengers who use wheelchairs or are assisted by other means. Wheelchair lifts and low-floor buses were among the signs of progress for the disabled. Then came the strike, and for some riders, it was like a return to the years when public transit presented huge barriers to the disabled.

Cynde Soto, a quadriplegic who lives in Long Beach, is a longtime activist for the disabled who remembers lobbying for improved services during the 1970s and meeting heavy resistance from government transportation agencies.

"They told us handicapped people didn't ride the bus," she recalled. "Of course they don't ride the bus, we told them. That's because they can't get on the bus."

Although Long Beach city buses are running, the shock waves of the MTA strike are reaching the port city.

Bertha Poole said she had to stay in bed the first weekend of the strike because her home care attendant, who lives in Compton, had no way of getting to her house.

Lying in bed brought back feelings she hadn't had for a long time, she said. "It was so confining. Very physically draining," she said. "Cabin fever sets in."

During the week, Poole, who depends on a wheelchair, manages to get around well enough to attend Long Beach City College. But on weekends, her regular attendant is off. Last weekend, she said, her weekday attendant agreed to come in on Saturday, and her daughter helped on Sunday.

For Long Beach resident Ben Rockwell, who also must use a wheelchair, the strike has meant an end to the affordable frozen dinners he shopped for at a new Albertson's next to the MTA's Blue Line Willow Station. The Albertson's, a little over a year old, was planned with the expectation of heavy passenger traffic on the Blue Line. With the Blue Line shut down, Rockwell has had to return to the more expensive, limited offerings at markets in his downtown Long Beach neighborhood.

Rockwell said closure of the Blue Line also shut off his opportunities to see friends in Los Angeles.

Paggi, who works at an independent living center in Van Nuys, has been getting to and from work and her home in Reseda by taking her electric wheelchair onto busy streets in the Valley. She must ride in the street because not all sidewalks in the Valley are accessible to wheelchairs.

She said she knows it's dangerous, and that it's wearing out her wheelchair, but getting to work is a high priority.

She said it takes her an hour and a half each way.

"It takes a lot of energy out of me," said Paggi, who has cerebral palsy. But with the buses not running, she said, she has no other way of getting to work.

There is a major transportation service in the county for the disabled, Access Services, but the program is limited. Generally, those with disabilities who live near bus lines are excluded if they can use public transportation. With the strike, Access Services said its calls are up 20%.

Ernest Tabarez, 43, is blind. He works and takes classes at the Braille Institute. But he lives close by, so he can take another special shuttle service for the disabled, CityRide. But CityRide is limited geographically, and other Braille Institute students and teachers must come from long distances.

Tabarez said one blind student walks to the east Hollywood campus from Chinatown. A blind teacher from Torrance takes the Torrance Transit bus to Washington Boulevard and Grand Avenue downtown, then walks the rest of the way, about seven miles, with his yellow Labrador guide dog.

"They are becoming very good in their mobility skills," Tabarez said. "It seems like everyone is determined to try to carry out what they normally do. But it may become too big a problem."

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