MTA Panel Defers Vote on Buses to Full Board

A key committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority took no action Wednesday on whether to recommend the purchase of 370 new diesel buses, leaving the full MTA board to decide next week on the fate of the agency’s policy to buy buses that run only on cleaner-burning fuels.

The failure to take a stand reflected the deep division among committee members over whether to abandon the MTA’s long-standing commitment to buy buses powered by cleaner fuels. The agency’s clean fuels policy has made the MTA the nation’s largest operator of natural gas buses.

Concerns about cost, safety and the risk of having too many buses operating on one technology prompted the MTA staff to recommend that the agency buy diesel buses instead of increasing its dependence on compressed natural gas.

Opponents argued that any move to buy diesel buses would be a major step backward in the fight for cleaner air.

Judy Brady, a first-grade teacher at a Brentwood elementary school, pleaded with the committee to have the MTA remain a leader in the operation of cleaner buses. She said diesel exhaust from school buses blackens air filters in her classroom windows.

Chung Liu, deputy executive director of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, disputed the MTA’s argument that diesel buses are cheaper to buy and operate, saying that ignores the proposal of Gov. Gray Davis to provide up to $150 million in state funds so the MTA can buy up to 385 alternative fuel vehicles.

Steven Anthony, representing Southern California Gas Co., the MTA’s natural gas supplier, said the cleanest commercially available buses run on that fuel.

But underscoring the emerging fight between the natural gas and oil industries, Chuck A. LeTavec, an engineer at Arco Products Co., told the committee that by using ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel and a particulate trap similar to a catalytic converter on a car, buses can reduce diesel emissions to the equivalent of compressed natural gas.