Bus fuss, part II: $5 for a day pass?
Talk of a fare hike for L.A. buses and rail has put the Bus Riders Union in full attack mode, firing up the kind of organizing drive that made it a major player in local transit planning a decade ago. Its tactic: put volunteers on buses all over the city to hand out flyers calculated to enrage everybody on board, especially if they happen to have brown skin. The goal is to make people think that routine and necessary planning decisions are really part of a campaign of class and ethnic warfare directed at the nonwhite.
Last week, the BRU's target was the Los Angeles Times, for having the audacity to suggest in an editorial that raising fares was a responsible move in the face of a $105-million operating deficit at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Its latest flyer lists prices that it claims are 2007 fare hike proposals from the MTA -- a day pass would rise to $5 from its current $3, a monthly pass would cost $75 (up from its current $52) and a monthly pass for seniors would rise all the way from its current $12 to $37.50. The flyer says the Bus Riders Union "received important information from a reliable source" about the fare hikes. That reliable source, in fact, was L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina, the chairwoman of the MTA board, who released the numbers last week in a press release during a fit of pique about a proposal to let runners in the L.A. Marathon ride public transit for free on race day. There's just one problem with the numbers: They aren't real.
The MTA actually hasn't yet made any formal proposals about fare hikes, and contrary to the BRU's assertion that its figures "will be announced publicly in the next couple of weeks," there are no plans to do so. MTA board members don't seem to be in any hurry to open the whole politically explosive debate and can be expected to put off discussion of the matter as long as possible. They have until the end of June to make a decision, since the MTA's fiscal year starts July 1. Meanwhile, the MTA is lobbying for $100 million in state funds that might render an immediate fare hike unnecessary, although even if the agency gets the money, it would only delay the pain of making a fare-hike decision until next year.
Despite all this, Molina didn't just make those fare numbers up; she probably got them from internal proposals about possible fare hikes, or from private discussions with transit planners. They wouldn't be unprecedented. Five dollars for a day pass, for example, is precisely what transit riders pay in Chicago, while in Boston such a pass goes for $9. But they are a bit draconian for Los Angeles, where low fares are a must both to encourage ridership from commuters and to serve our huge population of transit-dependent people. Particularly harsh, and probably politically unfeasible, is the 200% rise in the price of a monthly pass for seniors that Molina cited.
Hopefully, when the real numbers from the MTA come out, they'll be more manageable. Undoubtedly there will be a range of possible fare hikes for consideration by the board, though the lower the fare, the more service will have to be cut. Contrary to the utopian ideas of the Bus Riders Union, that's just the way it works in the real world.
Send people to hand out flyers with the truth.
Better yet, advertise the truth on the sides of buses.
The City of Los Angeles should not have to put up with trouble makers.
If it were up to me, I would make a fool out of those who want to start this "Because you are brown" garbage.
George Vreeland Hill
Posted by: George Vreeland Hill | February 21, 2007 at 09:44 PM
If people--NOT TO MENTION REPORTERS--want to know what Metro is up to, there are thousands of pages of minutes from the various Sector Governance council meetings that are held on a monthly basis. Fare increases are very, very rarely mentioned.
I've been commuting via Metro for over a decade, and I can tell you that I have absolutely NO respect for the BRU or its tactics. Their lawsuit and the consent decree have done far, far more harm than good.
Not to mention that organization claiming to be promoting services for the "inner city" and the "poor/oppressed" that can afford to pay for offices on Wilshire Blvd is entirely without credibility. Nor am I overly impressed by the apparent Socialist Party literature the BRU co-sponsors and leaves lying around on buses. There's litter enough left behind accident without some bunch of crackpots doing it by design.
The Times needs to stop giving the BRU all this credibility and press.
As far as a $5/day pass? Current levels of service don't merit that. Current levels of service merit an additional dollar at most. Pricing passes at $65 is also a reasonable uptick, but no more than that.
That's IF (a gargantuan IF) Metro MAINTAINS the service it has--which it's doing its dead level best NOT to do.
Currently Metro has plans on the table to cut two of the five lines to UCLA completely (the 305 and the 21), as well as more than a dozen others, including lines and critical segments of lines that provide service from "inner city" neighborhoods to public beaches in more affluent communities. And that's just the cuts planned for this coming June. They're considering even more draconian measures in December.
In addition, Metro is also substantially downgrading its service thru a program it calls "Metro Connections." This process CLAIMS to be about finding more efficient ways to move people around the system; but in actual fact it's about shortening bus lines and forcing riders to walk further, and to make multiple transfers, PARTICULARLY to what Metro calls 'the munis', or municipal bus systems like Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus, LADOT's Dash system, Torrance Transit, Long Beach, Foothill, etc. Transfers to/from muni's cost money every time, plus the rider has to pay the muni's base fee with each boarding unless possessed of the more expensive monthly E-Z Pass.
Here's an example of a Metro "connection" plan:
The current plan for Wilshire Blvd include eliminating all Metro service from Wilshire to UCLA, and terminating local Metro service line 20 past Veteran, with riders being expected to transfer to a Santa Monica line bus. (This load is something that Santa Monica has stated in for the record in Westside/Central Sector meetings that it cannot absorb, but hey! not Metro's problem!) Most of the Rapid 720 lines trips are planned to 'short line' at Westwood, again forcing a transfer to a muni line or waiting for a different 720 to continue to Santa Monica. Most thru service to Santa Monica will be via a new "RAPID EXPRESS" that will stop/board passengers just 3 times between downtown and Santa Monica. Anyone wanting this service will have to transfer from a local 20 or 720 at one of these 4 points. Of course, this four stop bus is being touted by Metro as a HUGE IMPROVEMENT of service! Despite the fact that catching it may require 2 transfers to even get to one of the four stops.
And those are just the cuts in service Metro is planning on WILSHIRE, which it acknowleges is the busiest bus line in the state, if not the nation.
Metro's stated goal is to become a preferred choice for users, and to get people out of their cars.
But by chopping up arteries like Wilshire Blvd and requiring riders to make multiple transfers on the SAME BLOODY STREET to go across town, Metro chops off its nose to spite its own face. Metro service is NOT, and has never been, reliable enough for commuters to rely on timed transfers. Every time someone changes a bus, it costs them a minimum of 10 minutes on high traffic arterial routes.
Currently, that's workable because most people only have to transfer 1-2 times per destination--a local route going directly to a train or a freeway flyer bus stop, then to another local to arrive at work, for example, or a single north/south line to a single east/west route. But cutting up of arterial routes into sections as Metro is experimenting with on Wilshire will force a rider to transfer as many as 4-5 times. A muni to a Rapid to get to the train or freeway; then to a Rapid to a muni to get to the office. Or you may end up with multiple transfers on a single artery, as is currently the case on Hawthorne-La Brea--for a person in Torrance to get to Hollywood/Highland requires a minimum of 3 bus lines on the same blessed street!
And instead of 20 minutes spent waiting to transfer, riders are likly to spend 45 minutes or even an hour standing on street corners, waiting to be mugged or run over in the early winter dark. That's not connecting, that's chaos and time wasting. And while many people may currently be willing to stand around for 20 minutes in the morning and again at night to save their blood pressure and the cost of parking, they're NOT going be willing to stand around for 45! They'll drive, and pay double or triple for parking.
It won't matter how high or low the fares are. Until Metro's on-time performance across the entire sytems makes timed transfers reliable, AND they improve arterial line service, particularly from the South Bay to the Westside where traffic is the worst, fares are going to HAVE to remain in the 3-4 dollar range. Otherwise, the hassle factor overwhelms the cost benefit.
Posted by: Sheryl | February 22, 2007 at 12:50 PM
Look the main reason for bus price hikes is because of all the accident claims the MTA is trying to pay for. I personally know of including myself 4 people that have been run into by buses. So I can only assume there are tons more out there. In most cases half of the drivers should not even be driving a bus. I recently met some one who said he had 14 tickets and the MTA was ready to hire him. So if the MTA wants to raise bus fare GOOD because they still haven't pay for my car and they have 6 months to do it before the claim goes dead.
Posted by: Todd Hawkins | April 25, 2007 at 07:14 AM