Saying that Los Angeles County transit officials have "substantially complied" with their promise to improve bus service for poor and minority riders, a federal judge Wednesday ended a decade of court oversight of the nation's third-largest public transportation system.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been required to spend more than $1 billion to buy buses, add service and maintain low fares since 1996, when the agency entered into a consent decree to settle a civil rights lawsuit with bus riders.
"As a result of the consent decree and the efforts of all the parties involved, the quality of life has improved for Los Angeles' public transit dependent poor population," Senior U.S. District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. wrote in his three-page order.
The consent decree, which expires Sunday, "has served its purpose and will not be extended," Hatter wrote.
While transit officials pledged Wednesday to maintain the improved service, advocates for bus riders said they would monitor the agency for any cuts in countywide operations. They had sought to extend the decree until the agency was in full compliance.
"If MTA significantly guts its bus system, we will be back before Judge Hatter asking for an extension," said E. Richard Larson, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which represented bus riders. "We are not going away."
Larson and others fear that, without the court's watchful eye, transit officials will return to neglecting the county's heavily used bus system to build and operate expensive subway and light-rail lines through more affluent neighborhoods.
Still, bus riders have benefited from the consent decree. "Overcrowding is still excessive," said attorney Connie Rice, who also represents bus riders. "It's better than it was 10 years ago."
Under the consent decree, the MTA reluctantly purchased 1,472 natural gas-powered buses, added 1.3 million hours of service and increased security while maintaining low fares.
Those actions transformed the county's transportation system -- once plagued by inoperable buses and frequent breakdowns, a lack of drivers, poor adherence to schedules and insufficient capacity -- into a nationally recognized transit leader.
This month, the MTA -- whose 2,000-bus fleet went from being one of the nation's oldest and dirtiest to one of its newest and cleanest -- was ranked among the nation's best transit agencies by its trade group, the American Public Transportation Assn.
