The
Daily News has an excellent
article on the continuing war between the
Bus Riders Union and the
MTA, a beef that is heating up again as the 1996
consent decree that forced the MTA to upgrade bus service comes to an end.
As the decree expires, expect the fur to fly as each side tries to make it's case for the future of the decree.
The BRU, having become quite accustomed to driving transit policy for the last decade, would like to extend the decree. The organization, as it's name would imply, prefers a buscentric solution to L.A.'s traffic woes. Here is a telling quote in the piece, from BRU organizer Deborah Orosz:
"If you take a couple of billion dollars, you could flood every freeway, every corridor, every canyon with buses that would come often, nights and weekends."
Yes, let's flood the streets with more busses! That will help traffic!
Well, not really. It would actually, in a nice piece of reverse classism, punish car owners for having the temerity to not be bus riders.
The MTA, rather unsurprisingly, is
not in favor of an extension of the decree. They want to build rail, damn it, miles and miles of it, with hundreds of half-empty train cars ferrying people to everywhere in the city except where people want to go: malls, beaches, Dodger Stadium, and the airport.
Could these two groups put their heads together and come up with a compromise that works for all commuters? Yes, they could.
Will they? No, they won't.
