Wednesday, April 25, 2007
MTA's Unfair Fare Hike
With MTA's recently proposed fare hikes, they'll place a huge burden on low-income riders where even a $1 difference will have a significant impact. Instead of convincing voters to vote for public transportation bills, invite advertisers on Metro stations, lobby for more funding, improve services that don't require a big budget in order to draw new riders, etc, they go for the mainly working class that make up the bulk of their ridership. That's the coward way.
The problem of transit in LA relates to the car and freeway mentality. It's Not that riders pay too low fares. A few cents increase, Ok, but several bucks in a matter of a couple years, it's unreasonable. It's not riders fault that MTA has a budget gap. It's partly their own fault. They didn't want to fix the nitty gritty details that would've enhanced the transit system. It took them until recently to provide long needed improvements. It took decades. Now riders are going to pay for it? It was those riders that long wished for basic improvements, all the while the MTA didn't care.
They ought to be lobbying for better funding, or help switch voters thinking to be in more support of public transportation fundings. There's something seriously wrong with the picture that one of the worst public transportation system among major cities also suffers a great budget deficit. It would be another thing if the system was already great, but it's either bad, or sucked overwhelmingly until just recently, with few exceptions. Riders were already the most affected by that which sucked. With a major fare hike, they will now effectively have to pay for having endured it.
The problem of transit in LA relates to the car and freeway mentality. It's Not that riders pay too low fares. A few cents increase, Ok, but several bucks in a matter of a couple years, it's unreasonable. It's not riders fault that MTA has a budget gap. It's partly their own fault. They didn't want to fix the nitty gritty details that would've enhanced the transit system. It took them until recently to provide long needed improvements. It took decades. Now riders are going to pay for it? It was those riders that long wished for basic improvements, all the while the MTA didn't care.
They ought to be lobbying for better funding, or help switch voters thinking to be in more support of public transportation fundings. There's something seriously wrong with the picture that one of the worst public transportation system among major cities also suffers a great budget deficit. It would be another thing if the system was already great, but it's either bad, or sucked overwhelmingly until just recently, with few exceptions. Riders were already the most affected by that which sucked. With a major fare hike, they will now effectively have to pay for having endured it.
MTA's Proposed New Fare Hikes:
| MTA Fares | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | Daily Pass | Weekly Pass | Montly Pass | Monthly Senior Pass | |
| Current | $1.25 | $3.00 | $14.00 | $52.00 | $12.00 |
| As of July 1 | $1.25 | $5.00 | $20.00 | $75.00 | $37.50 |
| January 2009 | $2.00 | $8.00 | $32.00 | $120.00 | $60.00 |
Labels: los angeles, metro fare hike, mta fare hike, new mta fares
