The MTA is a failure in Southern California. It actually encourages people to drive over public transportation. Some places have to wait an hour or more between buses. Trains are few and far between. As a public transportation system it fails miserably compared to BART or East Coast systems. The entire existing system needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to make public transportaion in the nations second largest city viable and attractive for the 10 million people in the metropolis. Taking the bus or train shouldn't be a hassle and it shouldn't cost more per month than maintaining a personal vehicle.

Particularly the bus systems need better routes, reliability and cost reductions to get people riding them. I remember commuting by bus in the past with 20-30 people on the bus while the freeway was packed. 50,000 people commute to Los Angeles from my area every day. There are about 2,000 seats on the 5 trains that service the area and probably the same on the commuter buses. The majority of the rest are single passenger drivers.

It's a one sided view of the story.  If they could, they'd make all
transit free - they think of it as a right but it's not - it's a
privilege.  No City is required to provide transit to their residents.
They are only required to make things accessible for the handicapped.

Here in LA, fares haven't increased for over 10 years - that means we
are way under inflation levels.  The fare box revenue accounts for about
10-15% of the cost of running the system.  That means 85% of every trip
is subsidized by the government!  Considering that most transit riders
in LA aren't taxpayers, that's either a bargain or travesty, depending
on what side you're on.  I may not like having to pay more but it is a
fact of life that living in the City you pay more for everything.
Transit is still cheaper than driving for most.  And don't even get me
started on the BRU's anti-rail campaign.  They are blind when it comes
to anything other than smog spewing buses.  They use socialist tactics
in a democratic system to blackmail cities, politicians, and to deceive
taxpayers.  The Metro board isn't perfect either but they are at least
governed by Brown Act & fair meeting laws.

GRRRR

Bus fares should be free in LA. Everyone who uses public transportation in this area is a hero. We don't add to the impossible traffic situation and we minimize pollution. Each one of us represents one less car. My commute is 11/2 hours each way. It includes metrolink, metro bus (because Foothill refuses to pick us up even when the buses are empty!!!!) and a 20 minute walk each way. This commute costs me almost $200 a month because of a recent fare hike. This is astronomical. Almost NO ONE ELSE at my work site uses public transportation. Free transportation might encourage more people to get out of cars. Los Angeles is one of the most backward areas in the country.  Those of us who use public transportation should be honored and treated well, not punished with outrageous fare hikes and rude service. In addition, the metro bus service broadcasts horrible TV programs during the ride disturbing public peace of mind while riding.

I live in Logan, Utah. Our transit system here is Cache Valley Transit District and it is fare free.  It can be done, the local politicians just have to decide that it is important.  Perhaps, they should actually start listening to the public rather than doing whatever they want to do.  Just a thought...

Why shouldn't our taxes support the transit system? It's socially and environmentally progressive, and our taxes pay for road/highway maintenance, too.

I am disturbed to hear that the LA buses broadcast TV programs. (1) What a freaking waste of money and energy, and (2) it's noisy. One of the pleasures in riding public transit is reading, or just zoning out (neither of which is advisable in a car). My condolences.

As a person that helps out in skid row whenever I can, I see my fair share of poverty. I'm not totally against raising the fare charge a little bit to off-set the cost of inflation, but I am against hiking it up so much that it will hurt people's opportunity to travel to work and other places.

The reality is that the poor don't have the money to support the bus system.  But I will tell you who does... the people driving on the freeways (generally speaking). Why isn't the bus system being subsidized by licensing and car registration fees? This would help two-fold in that it would help the the "clean" bus system out, but it would also encourage people to take the bus thereby reducing traffic and emissions.

The LA resident who points out that transit isn't a right is correct - but if you're looking at it that way, roads aren't a right, either.

On the other hand, state and local governments are required to make sure their residents have clean air to breathe. It's probably impossible for a large city to meet Clean Air Act standards without an extensive public transit system.

As things stand, cities don't have to provide transit at all---they can continue to use property taxes (paid by drivers and nondrivers alike) to build and maintain amenities for drivers, and no court will say boo.

Meanwhile, cities that have any sort of transit program must comply with ADA, which shoots the cost up through the roof.

Which is not an attack on this requirement; it's just a fact: we impose a costly burden (handicapped accessibility) only on the transit system.  Handicapped people pay taxes but are not entitled to any sort of services unless the municipality runs a transit system, in which case they are entitled to equal access.

What I think has to happen is for everyone to realize that, when it comes to participation in society, we've created a two-class system, auto users and non-auto-users, and we've handicapped the latter class greatly.  

What we need to do is rethink our view of what's in our "transit system" and, instead of pitting the needs of the handicapped against the non-handicapped transit riders (because the costs of service to the handicapped consume so much of the transit budget) while leaving auto owners off scot-free, we need to recognize that ALL modes of transport are part of the transport system, and that non-auto-users are, in practice, completely handicapped by automobile centered design.

Therefore, in a municipality that spends money on amenities for cars (roads, freeways, policing, parking spaces, parking ramps, maintenance, etc.) a right to transit should be recognized.

Once that happens the only question is how to make the transit most efficient, and that means fareless; everyone pays for the whole system; people who prefer to drive are free to buy the vehicle that allows them to drive; if not, the transit system is there to provide the service.

Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.

We use the term "rights" freely and frequently, but in fact there is a great deal of controversy about whether such a thing as "rights" truly exists.  Religious people such as George W. Bush like to say that we have "rights" only because they were given to us by God above -- which is an OK suggestion, to some extent, though obviously not everyone will want to subscribe.

And at once GWB and his right-wing friends land into trouble when they have to look negatively on such suggestions as, Everyone has a right to good health care, and, Animals have rights too.

In the case of public transportation in urban areas, it seems that the ethical responsibility of both the government and the citizenship of those areas is to do everything that can be done for the poor, or less well-off, or less capable, within their communities.  And that ought to include free public transportation, as well as free health care.

Making public transit free for one and all is a terrific idea too, but it would require a different kind of argument.  

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

I would like to see Mr. Mann document the sources of information and data that he bases his assertions on.

Mr. Mann states that a fare hike will "compel people to use or buy old cars instead of taking public transit."  He further writes "The BRU had sent 10 organizers out on the buses and got more than 100 depositions in which riders testified that the fare increases, often amounting to an additional $50 a month for a family of five transit riders, would give them no choice but to buy an inexpensive, polluting auto..."

What ultra efficient inexpensive polluting auto will these individuals be purchasing?  The average monthly cost of gas to run an automobile in Los Angeles will far out weigh the transit fare hike.

Were the organizers professional court reporters qualified to take legal depositions?

We are to believe that "over a 100" is a substantive number of the population that rides the bus?

I ride the bus everyday.  I was never interviewed.

Quite unclear, Tom, what you could mean by "socialism" in our army.

"Don't ask, don't tell" is a social disaster.  Ethically, this is worse than a disaster, it is a sin.

Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!

Both expanded bus service with no fare hikes and rail are the answer.  With the systems coordinated to maximize use and minimize GHG.  

A bus and rail pass for that same bus pass price?  Why not, it would pay its way with increased revenue from more riders.  And vast savings otherwise spent on unecessary freeway expansion.  And the same approach in every city would pay off in reduction of GHG climate disaster.  How much does GHG related drought and fire alone cost the taxpayers of LA county?

But tax cuts for the wealthy, corporate welfare, and oil wars are soaking up the tax dollars to do that.  The bottomline fat cats sit back and enjoy their power while we the people are set at each others throats over racism.

The BRU tactics expose the strategy employed.  Wake everyone up to how classism is used to add to the bottom line of corrupt contractors and politicians.  

Can we afford public transportation, public education (not day prisons), universal healthcare, and a carbon emission free energy economy?  Only if we take the tax dollars back from the crooks who pay politicians to let them siphon off 1000 dollars for every dollar in "campaign contributions" (bribes).

Stop oil wars and corporatist scamming and build a better culture world wide.

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A number of cities in Southern California have free bus service.  Burbank, Glendale, and Pasadena all offer extensive bus service in their communities for free.  Free bus service is seen as a public good in that it reduces congestion, promotes safety, reduces pollution, and reduces the need for parking.

Replacing street parking with bike lanes would be the next big step so that people can bike instead of taking the buses.

Cars are the enemy of urban life

It is unfair to say the trains serve the rich here.  They go through many poorer areas, and many people who ride them are not rich.  Do not tell me a train through Compton is rich.  Out by the foothills, we have been waiting a long time for the Gold Line train.  I ride a bus that follows near the route it will take when complete...  That bus is packed, often standing room only, sometimes too full to take on pasengers.  It's not rich people on that bus, it's working class people.  The same people this article talks about!  The train would serve them, and better than this bus, once built.  Yet we are still waiting...  Because the East Side extension is being built first.  It is not in a rich area either.

All our bus agencies here are struggling.  We need more money, and less of it to be tied to how much the fare box pulls in.  But the bottom line is we need more.  They're attempting an incredible task, with far too few resources.  Because I live in an area where you can't get by just using one agency's buses, I pay even more for my pass - $70 now.  It is too expensive, yes, but what can they do?  The money has to come from somewhere, the government provides a lot but not enough, and what they provide depends on how much the fares pull in.

As other commentators have noted, rail and bus should complement each other, not be fighting with each other for funding. Working class, middle class, and upper class should all have good access to quality, affordable transit.

It's totally myopic to pit bus vs. rail, when the real fight is between transit in general and highway funding.

I wish this passion was used to bring pro-environment, pro-worker people together, rather than dividing them.

And yet with some of the more important bus lines using the freeways, it can't even be that simple...  I wish there were an easy way.  Largely, this region needs to break out of the hub model of running everything through downtown, and focus on building a network that will be useful long-term rather than on just trying to stay in the black for now.  But even just running one new rail line directly along where an old rail once ran is frought with tedious arguments.  May we have time to get this done, because it sure isn't going fast.

As a thinking person of color, I am insulted by the BRU's pandering of minorities/immigrants, taking advantage of their gullibility of the process and force-feeding their ideology on them. Shame on Mann, a white Mann at that, who makes a six-figure income, employs hundreds of minority volunteers as slave labor and drives a BMW, for trying to speak on the behalf of people of color. Us minorities can speak for ourselves, and we don't need any white Mann to tell us what to say or how to think.

Correction:  In Los Angels the rail systems is heavily used.  Please, get your statistics corrected.  The rail system is much faster...its only downfall is that it is needed in more areas of the city.  

The bus system is sooooooooooooooooooooo slow...due to congested traffic, and many, many, many bus stops.

Please research these items:

-Speed of the buses
-Number of bus stops
-Numbers of the ridership of the rail

Thought it would be helpful to clarify/respond to a few statements made in earlier posts, and point out a few resources that can broaden discussion/knowledge on this topic.

Regarding TV on buses, several transit agencies around the US are instituting such programs.  They are generally funded completely by advertising dollars, with no installation cost to the transit agency and often some revenue paid back to the agency.  I agree that it would be better not to have the extra disturbance of TV on our transit vehicles, but given agencies' difficult budget constraints, these kind of creative arrangements may be necessary.  If you don't want to see TV on your buses, lobby your local, state & Federal representatives for more operating funding for transit!

Regarding an early comment about the majority of bus riders in LA not contributing to the subsidy of public transit because the subsidy comes from tax dollars (with an implication about citizenship status)... A good portion of operating funding for transit in LA, and most California systems, comes from sales tax revenue.  Sales taxes are paid by all, regardless of status.  

Some resources on the topic of rail, bus and transit funding in Los Angeles... (Google for results)...
Brian Taylor at UCLA has researched and written extensively on this topic.
Martin Wachs, formerly of UCLA and UC-Berkeley, has researched and written extensively about transportation funding options, taxes, equity, and related topics.
Jonathan E.D. Richmond has written papers and a book on rail transit in LA.

Some of these resources paint a less-than-favorable picture of rail projects in Los Angeles.  I do not point them out only show one side of the story -- I am in favor of BOTH rail and bus transit expansion in LA -- but because they are generally well-researched, thoughtful articles and papers.

TVs on buses?  The same buses that used to bust people for having a boom box without headphones -- you mean it was just that you were supposed to pay a cut to the bus company to get permission to make people homicidally angry and depressed about having to ride the bus?

What a PERFECT illustration of the abysmal depths to which public transit has fallen--the idea that we would not only herd people onto buses with inadequate capacity to give everyone a seat, but that we would then bombard them with the most annoying drivel that Madison Ave. can provide.

Like the old National Cities Line scheme (buy the rail systems and rip them up so as to sell more buses and tires . . . and cars), this seems more about ensuring that people don't ride buses than anything else.

Want advertising revenue?  Stream 20 or 30 digital radio stations with some ads and provide every seat and all the straps with a headphone jack.

Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.