The former acting administrator of the Maryland Transit Administration vigorously defended her record on bus safety yesterday and said she was a "political casualty" in an election year.

Virginia L. White led the MTA from July 2001 through June - a period during which 18 buses lost wheels in a string of incidents.

A state report released last week concluded that the wheels fell off because the studs that held them together broke off. The report also blamed White for moving slowly in response to the problem and to call in outside help.

"I really acted in the best interest of the MTA," White said yesterday in her first public comments since resigning. "And as I sit here today and think about what all has transpired over the months, I would do the exact same thing all over again."

She said she left the MTA after an 18-year career to restore public confidence in the system, but never doubted her ability to fix the problem.

"Whenever public safety is endangered and is on the radar screen, somebody's got to pay," White said. "I was the acting administrator, so I was the easy hit."

White says the state and previous MTA heads did not put enough emphasis on training and quality of parts. When she began her job in July last year, there was only one bus maintenance trainer for the MTA's fleet of about 800 buses, she said; by spring, there were five.

She also says the MTA specifications for the studs were not rigorous enough. The gold-colored studs that were used on buses earlier this year met the standards, but were at the "minimal end," she said, and were not durable enough for Baltimore's streets.

The state report is particularly hard on White for actions she took on May 8. The MTA's Office of Safety had called in a fleet maintenance consultant, Fleetpro, to check the studs on bus wheels. There was speculation that the studs were breaking because they were put on too tightly, so Fleetpro was asked to check them.

White said that no one told her Fleetpro had been hired, and when she heard on May 8 that they were working on buses at the Bush Division garage, she ordered the work halted.

The report concluded that White "intervened in the investigation in a manner that did not support identifying the root cause of the problem." White bristles at that interpretation.

"Here we had this group of people - I don't know who they are, I don't know what their purpose is, and they're doing something to my buses? I don't think so," she said.

"I told [Transportation] Secretary [John D.] Porcari my reasoning behind stopping Fleetpro, and he seemed to understand that at the time, but maybe that went by the wayside since I became a political casualty."

A spokesman for the state Department of Transportation declined to comment on White's statements.

"The report is based on the facts, and the facts speak for themselves," said department spokesman Jack Cahalan.

White disputes the report's assertion that the problems began in August last year. She said the first two instances of wheels falling off buses - in August last year and in January - were because of wheel bearings breaking down. Mechanics were instructed to check the bearings when they changed tires, she said, and she considered that problem solved.

Then four buses lost wheels in February and two more buses lost wheels in March. Five of those six buses were based at the Kirk Division garage, and White said she initiated disciplinary proceedings against managers there in March.

At the same time, the quality assurance office was sending studs out to be tested.

White did not form an investigative team until April 20 - when three more buses had lost wheels in four days. Her team decided to order all the studs replaced on the buses at Kirk with new gold-colored ones.

"Our fix was worse than the problem," White said. "So we had to fix the fix."

A campaign to replace the studs on all the buses with carbon-based gray studs began May 9. White said outside experts weren't called in before May because she trusted her quality assurance department to solve the problem.