Buses

In "We're Driving Ourselves to a Lousy Quality of Life in Our Smog-Maker Cars," (California Commentary, Dec. 4), Judy Wright advocates greater use of buses to cut pollution and speed traffic flow. It is difficult to imagine how buses could be better for the environment when they all seem to belch far more soot per passenger than most cars. Likewise, it is hard to see how buses could decongest our highways and byways. More often than not, what's causing a jam is a big, clumsy, lane-straddling bus that's incapable of attaining reasonable speed or even clearing an intersection.

Re "Full Disclosure Now Before Busway Is Built," Valley Perspective, Aug. 27. Ever since the voters approved funding for a rail system, the pro-oil lobby has fought to fracture, delay and sabotage our progress in alternative mobility. The auto industry favors buses simply because this makes public transit less appealing than the private auto. Rail systems, however, offer an alternative that terrifies the oil companies: competition. Readers are advised to research the original conspiracy case against the auto lobby to understand how the Metropolitan Transportation Authority makes so many serious mistakes in planning and judgment.

The Sulfur Springs Union School District is evaluating a proposal that would charge students $100 per year to ride the school buses. Families would pay $75 per year to bus a second child and $50 for a third. This was done in the Newhall School District, and the results were that many students abandoned the school bus in favor of public transportation. If the school district begins to charge the parents for the buses, what is next? Will students have to start buying their own books?

Re "State Must Rein In MTA, Official Says," June 23: I ride the bus to work, so for me it's no surprise that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been neglecting the bus service in favor of its rail projects. I have to take three buses, and it takes me two hours to get from the Highland Park area to the University Park neighborhood. Even during the rush hour I typically have to wait 20-30 minutes to transfer between buses. On top of this, the buses and bus stops are filthy and graffitied, most of the drivers are surly, and half the time the wheelchair lifts don't work.

Armed men opened fire on buses carrying assembly-plant workers near the Texas border early Thursday, killing four people and wounding 15 others in the latest spasm of violence to rattle Mexico. Authorities in the northern state of Chihuahua said the victims, identified as employees of a U.S. car-upholstery plant called Eagle Ottawa, were riding home about 1 a.m. when three company buses came under fire outside Ciudad Juarez. Officials said they had not determined a motive. Witnesses said gunmen jumped aboard looking for a male passenger.

Smokers will have to go "cold turkey" when taking a trip on Canadian planes, buses and some trains under tough new anti-smoking regulations announced by the government. The new regulations, effective Jan. 1, extend the existing smoking ban on domestic flights to all international flights by Canadian carriers. Canada banned smoking on domestic flights in 1987.

The city will receive funding for several environmentally friendly buses, state Sen. Adam B. Schiff (D-Glendale) said this week. The California Transportation Commission has approved $927,000, to be combined with matching local funds of $573,000, to buy six compressed natural gas buses. The new buses will replace six being used along Glendale's Beeline public transportation system, said Mark Maloney, supervisor of transportation and parking service for the city.

A court order requiring transit authorities nationwide to equip all new buses with wheelchair lifts was overturned by the full U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday. The court said the U.S. District Court and a three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit overstepped the boundaries of the lawsuit filed against the U.S. Transportation Department in 1988 by Americans Disabled for Accessible Public Transit and several other groups.

Transit officials today are expected to approve funding to replace 78 aging minibuses used primarily for the disabled. The special vehicles, which follow fixed routes across Orange County, are also used to take passengers from Metrolink train stations to parking areas and other locations. Their most extensive use, however, is by those with disabilities, said George Urch, a spokesman for the Orange County Transit Authority.

Having written the law that snuffed out new subway construction in Los Angeles, county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky proposed an alternative Friday: a modest network of new lanes reserved for extra long buses. The proposal, offered at a meeting of San Fernando Valley politicians and transit planners, echoed a plea for simplicity repeated by most of the speakers.