No, editorial page editor Andres Martinez is not Karl Rove. And The Times is not in favor of workhouses or other Dickensian remedies for poverty. Now that we have that out of the way, we can get on with the substance of the Bus Riders Union's complaints about our Jan. 26 editorial calling for higher public transit fares in Los Angeles.

The BRU, whose lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the mid-1990s led to a decade-long federal consent decree that dictated how the agency could spend its money, was passing out pamphlets in front of The Times building on 1st Street today. Here's the opening shot:

LA Times Calls for MTA to Raise Bus Fares and Cut Service!

What's next? Future editorials calling for debtor's prisons? The flogging of the poor?

Bus Riders Union Asks: Is the LA Times changing its name to the MTA News? Is this attack against bus riders part of the plan to fund the Subway to the Sea? Five years ago the LA Times took a progressive stance and urged the MTA to buy more buses and abide by the Consent Decree. What has led to their descent into transit racism? Has Karl Rove taken over the editorial board?

Well. First off, The Times five years ago simply urged the MTA to stop expending so many resources fighting the consent decree in court and instead just obey it. The decree was ended in October, so that's no longer at issue. What is at issue is the future of an agency that hasn't raised fares since 1995, despite the pressures of inflation and the rising cost of fuel. The result is a transit system that has been cannibalizing itself for years and can't maintain its current level of service. Even if fares are raised slightly, L.A. bus riders will be getting a better deal than in nearly any other big U.S. city--compare the $3 day pass in Los Angeles to the $9 pass in Boston, and it puts a 25- or 50-cent fare hike into perspective.

To advocate for a sustainable transit system is not racist. By arguing against a fare increase, the BRU is likely to harm the very population of transit-dependent people it purports to represent, since the MTA can't fund its current operations, let alone afford more buses and new routes. It's going to take more taxpayer subsidies to build the transit system that L.A. needs--one that both covers dense corridors like Wilshire with rail or subway and that provides enough bus routes to meet the needs of such a geographically vast city. But it will also take a bigger contribution from the people who actually use the system. That's not racism, it's economics--and just plain fairness.