Another RTD Garage Fails CHP Check

The beleaguered board of directors of the RTD demanded quick corrective action Thursday after another transit district bus garage failed its California Highway Patrol safety inspection, giving the agency its worst bus maintenance report card in nearly a decade.

All together, three out of 10 RTD bus divisions inspected so far this year have been rated “unsatisfactory” in surprise checks of safety-related components by CHP officers. The latest failure came at the Sun Valley bus yard after three buses were ordered out of service for fuel tank leaks.

Altogether, 14 RTD buses--about 15% of those inspected--have been ordered off the road by the CHP this year for problems ranging from a flat tire and faulty brake systems to a broken bolt that holds the axle to the chassis.

Half of those buses were “imminently hazardous,” said A.D. (Al) Palmer, the CHP’s motor carrier specialist, while the others were “of a developing nature that needed to be taken care of.” Two more RTD divisions remain to be inspected, Palmer said.

The RTD’s director of bus maintenance, Rich Davis, said the worst previous performance on CHP inspections was 1979, when seven out of 11 garages failed. Last year, only one of the 12 RTD bus garages failed inspection, and this year bus maintenance was supposed to be improved under RTD General Manager John Dyer’s plan to solve the district’s many reported problems.

Davis and Dyer, in a report to the RTD board on Thursday, argued that the district looks worse this year because far more rigorous inspection standards are being used by the CHP--an assertion disputed by the CHP’s Palmer. The CHP has been gradually tightening up inspection standards, but no major change occurred this year, Palmer said.

Expect Quick Reversal

RTD President Jan Hall, who normally rises to the district’s defense in the face of outside criticism, expressed open frustration at the latest bad news. “As far as I’m concerned, these divisions must pass,” she told Davis. “There absolutely must be no question about the safety of these vehicles. . . . We expect a quick reversal.”

Davis tried to reassure the RTD board that the maintenance problems cited do not correlate to accident problems. He noted that the Los Angeles chapter of the National Safety Council on Thursday awarded the RTD safety awards for low accident rates at two of the bus divisions that failed their CHP inspections.