Breaking news: Judge rules against Bus Riders Union suit

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Thomas McKnew issued a ruling today against a lawsuit brought by the Bus Riders Union over fare increases approved last year by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board.

The judge had already issued a tentative ruling in the same direction a few weeks ago. The Bus Riders Union and the Natural Resources Defense Council had sued the MTA board, alleging that the MTA should do an environmental analysis before raising fares -- because fare hikes usually result in fewer people riding mass transit.

While Metro rail ridership has hit record highs this summer, bus ridership is still recovering from dips last summer after the MTA board raised fares. The increase last year hiked the price of a day pass from $3 to $5, effectively eliminating low-cost transfers.

In the tentative ruling, McKnew found that the MTA didn't have to do the study because California environmental law allows an exception to transit agencies if they can prove that fares go to operating expenses. The Bus Riders Union and NRDC alleged that the MTA was running a surplus.

David Pettit, director of the NRDC's Southern California Clean Air Program, said in a statement: "Today's ruling means more people will be forced to take potentially more polluting forms of transportation to work, school or church. The MTA should make it easier, not harder, for riders to use public transportation."

Pettit also has a blog entry about the ruling at the NRDC site.

The half-cent sales tax increase proposal that the MTA wants to put on the November ballot would delay next year's fare increases until 2010 and put a five-year freeze on fares paid for by seniors, disabled and low-income passengers.

-- Steve Hymon

Photo: Annie Wells / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Dana Gabbard]

Most of us activists considered this lawsuit a publicity stunt from the get-go. Interestingly the lawyers are not the same ones who handled the lawsuit that led to the consent decree. What if anything that means I have no idea.

And it is the height of hypocrisy for the BRU to cry about higher fares/and or service cuts when they have done zero to fight the robbery of transit funds in Sacramento. They were asked to help the alliance of activist groups last year fighting it but demurred, and then later with their usual grandstanding declared any funds not stolen MUST be used to reduce fares, etc. They were doing none of the work yet arrogantly declared they'd dictate the spending of any moneys saved by the efforts of the rest of us who actually fought like hell to stop the raids. And it ended up all moot as we were robbed anyway. It is sad to witness the BRU devolve from a group that in its early years did some real good into an empty shell that spouts extreme rhetoric and empty soundbites while engaging in meaningless gestures like this and perpetual protests that even local TV stations no longer cover.