What's wrong with L.A. Public Transportation?

So after the public hearing on May 24, the MTA received mostly protests, expectedly, from transit riders. It seems the fight isn't over. The Bus Rider's Union keeps it up, albeit whether their charges are fair or not could be discussed, but at least someone is standing up for those riders. They claim the MTA is racist. Well, are they really? Perhaps "elitist" would be a better word for it. After all the fare hike would adversely affect the poor regardless of race. They may be a bit crazy, but at least they're fighting hard, and actually bringing real results to riders. The fight against MTA's proposed brutal fare hike seems to have succeeded in placing a limit on the hike and making it less drastic.

MTA's Latest Fare Hike:

MTA Fares
	Cash	Daily Pass	Weekly Pass	Monthly Pass	Monthly Senior Pass
Current	$1.25	$3.00	$14.00	$52.00	$12.00
As of July 1	$1.25	$5.00	$17.00	$62.00	$14.00
January 2009	$1.50	$6.00	$20.00	$75.00	$17.00

Remarkably the cash fare will stay the same until 2009, and the monthly senior will rise by only $5 until 2009. Clearly this is much more reasonable than the previous proposal. Still, the day pass will go up to $8 by that year. That's amazingly expensive if you're going through just say 2-3 transfers, and perhaps even short rides in a day. If you're traveling just a few times per week, and a weekly pass isn't feasible, then it may cost $24 plus for only a few simple routes per week. But at least it's not as expensive as the previous proposal would've been, and there's more to come in terms of a possible reversal or further changes (apparently law suits among other things), so even with this change, there may be more hope. Sure, it can't be easy for the MTA, but there's got to be better ways to close their budget gap than to place the burden on the riders, almost exclusively.

Labels: latest fare hike, los angeles mta, metro