Thursday's Metro Board meeting to hear public comment and vote on new fares for public transportation in Los Angeles was, simply put, an amazing scene. An estimated 1500 people showed up with approximately 1498 of them opposing the insanely high raised fares (try 500% for some passes). During public comment, speakers spoke with passion, anger, tears and fury.
One of the day's best quotes came from a woman who held her baby in her arms talking of the hardships a raise of fares will cost her and her family, most likely forcing her to move out of state. She ended her statement with "I can budget for my family. Why can't you?" As with just about every speaker that day, it drew cheers from the crowd.
Laughter helped in the tense environment when a man spoke and Board president Gloria Molina asked him if he had already spoken earlier that day. He said yes and a girl from the audience shouted "too late now!" The room broke out in laughter, Molina included.
The day ended with a vote for fare increases, albeit a more modest proposal than the harsh and extremely pricey one brought foward by Roger Snoble and Metro staff. Metro's website summarizes the new rates.
Walking the halls, we found that the meeting brought together a lot of the who's who in the public transit advocacy world of Los Angeles. And that is what follows after the jump...
Above photo by Stephen Box
Andy Lipkis, President and Founder of TreePeople (who we recently visited) was one of the first to speak out of the 300 or so public comments.
We met Lisa Adler last summer where she told us about the Bus Riders Union. We didn't get a chance to speak to her because she was busy all day running around the meeting organizing union members.
Meet Damien Goodmon, the genius behind the Los Angeles County Rail Network at Get LA Moving. He spoke after a presentation by the Bus Riders Union and opened with, "I am a bus rider and the Bus Riders Union does NOT speak for me. And as an African-American man who has been the victim of real racism, let me say how I abhor the race baiting tactics utilized by some organizations on this fare increase issue... This is not a discussion about race. It is a discussion about the cost of labor and commodities and the ability of this agency to deliver a public service."
News reporters stayed throughout the day, collecting quotes from various speakers. Unfortunately, most captured quotes did not make the papers due to the high volume of public comment speakers. Yet, this would have proved to be a more interesting angle than any traditional news media story. However, LA Times' Bottleneck Blog did a lot of live blogging. The above photo is of Daily News' Sue Doyle with Father Delaney.
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If you want to know about bicycle advocacy in Los Angeles, this couple is in the thick of it. Meet Enci and Stephen Box who led the Bike to Work rally that we showed you last week. They are also the people behind IlluminateLA.com
Bart Reed of The Transit Coalition, Enci (shown above) and Hank Fung of the Southern California Transit Advocates. Reed's weekly e-mail newsletter was featured as one of our eNewsletters that Rock back in August.
So many people attended the meeting, the building was shut down to new entrees. Many saw the hypocrisy of a public meeting where much of the public was locked out.
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I'm so disgusted with BRU for pulling the race card on this issue, a rate hike that hits everyone is racist? Look at it this way: the MTA fares are some of the lowest in the Nation (currently) for a city-wide transit system. Try taking the BART in SF, or a subway in NY and then you see some steep fares for travel. Even Seattle's transit system is more expensive. How long did anyone think that MTA could continue being one of the cheapest transit systems in North America? Reality sucks, but either pay the new fares, or watch the system go bankrupt. MTA can't expand it's service to new areas and simultaneously keep it's fares at an underinflated rate.
The race thing is just odious. No wonder BRU lacks any credibility.
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Since there seems to be such difficulties balancing the differing needs between bus and rail systems in the city, wouldn't it be better to break them into separate systems where each could focus on their unique needs and seek out additional funding sources without constantly making it a battle between rail or bus?
In some ways, I think this would greatly reduce the clout of the BRU in thwarting rail projects throughout LA.
Of course, do we really want another bureaucracy to deal with? That said, I don't see how MTA can continue to control both elements of the transit system. Their goals are simply too conflicted to ever reconcile in one entity.
Douglas
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the people who hide behind the "fact" that the fares in LA are lower than the rest of the country are completely missing the point.
LA is a city that needs newer ridership more than any other city in the country. is the fact that our air quality is second worse in the nation (f pittsburgh) good enough reason to try to keep fares low to help convince people to take it easy on their car usage? isn't our infamous gridlock another reason to try to get people off the freeways and sidestreets?
its the narrowminded, who think that our situation in LA is anything like the rest of the country, who keep the smog thick, the traffic fucked, and the public transportation rising.
Metro and LA and CA need to work on solutions to get the fares lower, as in as close to free as possible, thus making the choice to drive a car an even more expensive one.
great report, Zach
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Off the mark Zach, rider fares haven't increased since 1992(!) and with gas prices already through the roof this should be more than enough cause for people to take the bus/train. Is this huge migration towards mass transit happening? No. In fact, ridership has remained mostly stable regardless of circumstances, even with the opening of the Gold Line/Orange Line. Somehow these expansion projects need to be paid for and that is ultimately up to the consumer.
FYI, I've never owned a car and take transit every day, I'm as much of a transit proponent as can be, but I also am a realist. This is the largest mass transit system on the West Coast, and likely the most costly. Reducing the fare rate, a ridiculous suggestion, will bankrupt the system and then there would be no busses or trains to ride.
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I'm sorry Tony, but I don't think low fares is what is going to get people who have the choice from their cars to public transit.
As has already been mentioned, current fares are extremely low, and it doesn't make a difference. People who aren't woefully poor - those in the middle class and above, those who buy iPods and pay $90 a month for cell phone service, and buy $20 plain t-shirts because they are "sweat shop free", and pay $14 dollars to see a movie - these people (people like me) aren't going to b
e swayed against something because it's not free. Hell, they aren't going to be against something because it's expensive. What will get them out of their cars is good service and a good image.
Metro needs to raise it's fares so it can continue to improve its service and image so it can pull people from their cars to the buses and trains. If it were a money issue, no one would be driving because cars are simply financial disasters.
The biggest challenge the city faces in addressing the problems you list (pollution, gridlock, etc) is cultural, not financial. Only once idiot Angelenos are convinced that riding public transit won't make them losers in the eyes of their peers will they get out of their goddamn cars. At it's highest cost, in July 2011, a Metro EZ pass (unlimited access to all bus and rail in the county) will cost you $1200 annually. According to this CNN.com article from 2005, the average annual cost of car ownership in Los Angeles is $10,361. You do the math. Even if Metro's originally proposed "draconian" fare increase was passed, an EZ pass would cost you $1,680 a year - a meager savings of over $8,600 per year versus owning a car.
As for the BRU:
The BRU needs to get its head out of its ass and realize how things work. You don't go into McDonalds, demand a Value Meal to be Supersized and then also require that the price be half that of a Non-Supersized Value Meal, and then threaten to sue McDonalds for being racist if they refuse to comply. It's just absurd.
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The CNN article I mentioned: www.cnn.com/2005/AUTOS/07/29/costliest_car_ownership_cities/index.html
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Oops, sorry, I meant Tony, not Zach.
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I am a big fan of public transportation, and now I am an even bigger fan of Zach Behrens. This post, which tells me something I need to know and provides relevant links and photos of who's who, blows most of LAist's other entries out of the water. Way to go, Zach!
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Zach is great.
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I just moved here from Atlanta, GA a month ago. I think they they went from honor based system, to a turn style system like they had in ATL. with RFID re-usuable cards, they would probably make their money they need. Every time I buy a day pass for the train, No one ever asks to see it. I wonder how many people just ride without paying. Hell they can look me up for ways to make money, without raising the fare.
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I keep hearing people compare other cities' public transit fares to those of the MTA, reasoning that a fare increase is logical since LA's fares are lower than those of many other cities (i.e., SF, Boston, NY, and Chicago).
However, the transit systems in these cities all have something in common that LA's sorely lacks: a very extensive rail, subway and bus system that gives riders a real and cost-effective alternative to owning a vehicle. It makes sense to me that you get what you pay for, but by increasing fare prices to those of SF or NY, Angelenos are not necessarily getting a better transit system for their money.
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If you really want to compare like-to-like fares, please see the spreadsheet at socata.net (click on "fare increase information and perspectives") and make your own comparisons. Contrary to popular belief, while the base fare is pretty low (25th percentile), the current bus passes are actually in the median of all transit agencies with 200 buses or more. (BART doesn't count since it is more of a regional rail system, like Metrolink.)
The problem is that the BRU never moved beyond their bodies-in-the-seats model and worked seriously to advocate something in concert with their belief system. They are squandering some of the talents, like the aforementioned Ms. Adler, and others, who are on the activist pipeline from east coast colleges. I would like to see them advocate for increased gas taxes, for instance, to get their 50 cents fare. How about working with the Reason Foundation to get their busways on freeways going? You give us buses and we'll support building toll roads over existing freeways. Show some courage.
Great job, by the way, Zack.
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The MTA has a huge budget deficit that it needs to work off. If people don't want their bus lines and metro lines to severely be cut down, they should be willing to pay for it.
I think the Metro has been quite timid in not having raised rates for such a long time. Since people are not getting out of their cars, it is going to be a necessity to have an adequate rail system - the buses take way too long during rush hour.
What surprises me the most is how they keep expanding the freeways. Uh...if you want people to get off the freeways, keep them where they're at and charge people to get on that bitch, too! It's the middle and upper classes which are driving, right? So charge them to get on the freeway and to go through downtown and use all that money to build public transport. Politicians don't have balls anymore. Suck it up and have some foresight.
One thing that pisses me off to no end is how reactive L.A. is to change. We're never at the forefront...it's always after New York, London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, San Francisco. What the hell? That'll always keep us second tier.
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I've seen a lot of people grousing about the "honor system" we have for fares. These people are wrong.
They've done surveys and 97% of people pay the fare. Only 3% of people are "cheating", so the honor system works. Period. I don't want our subway system looking like a prison (ever been in the New York or Boston subway?), and it's NOT POSSIBLE to place a barrier system on the light rail lines WHICH ARE OUTDOORS. It would cost MILLION$ to put barriers in place on the Red/Purple line. And then, what if there's an emergency? You want to be trapped inside a steel cage during a fire or an attack?
What we do need to do is fund more fare inspectors, which would get some more revenue coming in (from fines) with a small investment. I would agree with doing that.
Let's face it. Poor people (that can't afford a car) are always going to ride the MTA no matter how bad service is. And rich people are never going to ride the MTA no matter how good service is.
As usual, everything comes down to the people in the middle. But you're not going to get people out of the cars if the service is lousy. And MTA has been working on it, with more rail, the Metro Rapid service and realigning bus service. I fully believe MTA has improved their service markedly since 1990. Why else did they win the Best Transit System in America from the APTA?
I'm sick and tired of people complaining that the Metrorail system "doesn't go anywhere." The system has 73 miles of rail, will be 92 miles by 2010. And it is the sixth largest mass transit rail system in the USA. By 2010 it will be the fourth largest system by length. Any more rail that can be built, any little tiny addition, is precious and well worth pursuing. Any time 1000 cars, 500 cars, even 100 cars can be taken off the freeways during rush hour (because the person started taking mass transit), it's a tiny but significant step.
William: They are not building anymore freeways. They are widening a few freeways here and there, but that's it. The only potential new freeway is the 710 tunnel. But you're right, restricting freeways would cut traffic a bit. What we should do is make all the freeways CARPOOL ONLY FREEWAYS during rush hour for private vehicles.