Crystal McMillan, a BRU member, speaks at the press conference [1]

The BRU held a press conference last Friday to release a 2600 person survey that revealed the strong dissatisfaction that bus riders have with MTA bus service.

The BRU, a civil rights and environmental justice organization, conducted this survey to demonstrate to the MTA that bus service improvements must be a cornerstone to any plan to expand public transit in LA County. The results gave MTA a "D" grade in almost every category, including on time performance, overcrowding, fares, and frequency of service, weekend service, and overall accessibility. MTA received an "F" on night service.

"The results are shocking, not because its hard to believe the responses from bus riders, but because the debate at MTA over the future of transportation in LA County is about how many billions of tax dollars to spend on highway construction or rail expansion-with little to no mention of the bus system," said Esperanza Martinez of the Bus Riders Union. The group cites the MTA's 2009 draft Long Range Transportation Plan, a 30-year, $260 billion plan is a plan for rail and highway expansion and a plan for fare increases and service cuts.

Crystal McMillan, a 45-year old Black woman living in Korea town and BRU member, is currently unemployed and looking for work. "When I look at a job posting I need to know that I can rely on the bus to get me to that job, no matter how far it is. When I lost my job, my income was cut. Fare increases aren't just an inconvenience; they directly impact my daily life," she said.

The debate inside of the MTA and the 2009 draft Long Range Transportation plan, a $260 billion dollar, 30-year plan is centered on highway and subway expansion. This move is unsustainable and will bankrupt the agency. The draft LRTP is a plan for fare increases, service cuts and the construction of costly projects that the MTA has no money to operate which they then shift the financial burdens on the backs of bus riders.

The BRU has a proposal, the Clean Air and Economic Justice plan [4] that calls for

1. 500 expansion buses;
2. Expansion of overall service;
3. Reversal of the 2007 fare increase; and
4. $150 million for bus only-lanes. 

The BRU calls on three members of the MTA Board of Directors- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, LA City Councilman Jose Huizar, and County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas- to endorse their Clean Air and Economic Justice Plan and move to include the plan in MTA's own long range plan. Villaraigosa, Huizar, and Ridley-Thomas collectively represent hundreds of thousands of bus riders and thus have an obligation to advocate for the civil rights of bus riders, the group said.

LOS ANGELES TIMES coverage: MTA gets low marks for bus service in survey [5]: The Bus Riders Union says riders gave the agency a D in overall service, a finding that conflicts with the results of the MTA's survey in June.