First, the Red Line does not stop operating at 10:00. It runs until past midnight.

Second, nowhere near “many” lines are “cut” when rail is expanded. Yes, service that operates in the same corridor will be reduced, but that is because — despite the BRU’s claims to the contrary — people will choose the rail over the bus if it goes to the same place. That is why, as your misstated example, Line 1 service was cut back when the Red Line extension to Hollywood opened in 1999 because … the passengers who wanted to go downtown from Hollywood Blvd. stopped riding Line 1. (And, in case you overlooked it, overnights, when the Red Line is not running, Line 2 service does continue as Line 217.)

If people weren’t riding the rail, the bus service would have to be increased (you BRU people saw to that). So less service is a direct result of less passengers using the service.

Bus service cannot be the entire answer. If you add more buses, they simply get stuck in traffic. The “real world” passengers (as in, not your members) understand that the rail gets them where they are going faster. And that is why they want the subway extension down Wilshire.

You do, of course, realize the hypocrisy of being against rail when your organization is headquartered in the high-rent penthouse of the Wiltern Theatre building, across from the Wilshire/Western subway station …

It makes perfectly good sense to me to fix what we already have. Whenever rail is expanded many lines are cut to fund the new projects and we are left without these lines which are not replaced with rail or any other lines. This is deplorable in my opinion.

Rail or buses, this city does not operate in a way where I can tolorate not having a car. I just can’t get around. At night the rail hardly runs past 10pm (Red Line) and the wait is sometimes so long I forfiet the ride and walk back to the bus stop to catch another 2 buses. The 217 use to turn into the 2 and continue up Sunset into Silverlake. Once the rail was built this line was cut. What has replaced this line? Not the rail.

So what is going on here? Don’t worry with the riseing cost of rent things will become so unaffordable we won’t have any more “vitims” as you call them, living in the city or anywhere near it. The transportation system will belong soely to the so-called middle class.

Yeah and it’s a dumb foundation. So is this some story of a guy out to get revenge? The guy trying to fight “the man”? BS.

To most of us educated in the liberal tradition, pretty much anyone who went to school in the last 500 years, we would immediately write it off as dumb. And rightly so.

But Eric Mann is looking for people who react with a desired reaction, with consistency. And he will always find them.

Interestingly enough, if you think he casts a better net with the poor and uneducated, Mann’s most loyal base comes from people with at least some form of college education.

Many bus riders give up on the Bus Riders Union because of its Bolshevist-style deliberation. Their needs aren’t addressed, and they are often “educated” that they must do their part to push forward a movement. Cynically, this is just code for downplaying service quality issues because it would be against solidarity with the unionized Metro workers.

College students, however, are full of committed leftists who know of Eric Mann’s reputation and who are looking for a machine to rage against. These are the people you can’t argue against, since they are cognizant of Western thought and are immune to falling for it. They pretty much know how you think and what you will say next and are ready for it. Meanwhile, you’d get frustrated by their stubbornness.

At least the ‘net is pretty much a BRU-free zone, since the diversity of people and opinions have helped marginalize the group.

I have a “guest columnist” opinion article in today’s Daily News on the BRU:

http://www.dailynews.com/theiropinion/ci_6399237

Rail is needed. Period. The Metro covers so much area in Los Angeles it’s amazing. More buses? Why, there are already enough! We don’t need anymore vehicles on the roads.

He’s anti-LA.

While I do commend some of the work that the BRU has done, as a transit taker in LA, I have to say I’m often very frustrated and puzzled by the BRU’s anti-rail stance.

One mistake is to write off the BRU’s stance or agenda as stupid. It is not. Most of us just don’t know how to “think Marxist.”

The high concept of the Bus Riders Union: if public transit can be made miserable to just the right extent, we can finally have a revolution.

Mann has devoted his life to leftist causes. He has decades of organizing and management experience. Granted, the BRU/LCSC has zero knowledge of transportation, and has an outward appearance of incompetence. Not so.

Mann knows that there are two other prominent transit advocacy groups in L.A., and he knows they watch him carefully. He knows he’s being kept in check. So it’s not that he really does not recognize his own ignorance.

Mann operates under a thought of Marxism that believes in all thoughts, actions and institutions serving as the heavy artillery of the bourgeoisie to maintain an upper hand in the class war. Essentially, all of Western civilization is a conspiracy set up by wealthy elites to advance their own interests. Seeing this conspiracy created victims, it is important for the victims to first recognize the artillery as having created their misery, then to delegitimize it so they’re not trapped by it.

This is the operational thinking of the BRU/LCSC. The difference is, the BRU understands the “other side” of the argument while most everyone else, thinking in the Western tradition, does not know how the BRU works.

But what does all this ideological background have to do with rail, and why the BRU hates it?

Well, much of the support for incorporating rail into Los Angeles transportation has come from the middle classes. These are generally people who are well-educated, have enough discretionary time and money for advocacy, and have the political savvy to make their interests known.

To Eric Mann, this class is a threat because it douses the flames of revolution. Had rail been out of the picture, Mann would have seen the “tipping point” for social revolution. He, like many Marxists, knows very few people will voluntarily and rationally opt for revolution, so the masses need an event, the tipping point, to be engulfed and agitated into action. The middle class will just screw up things. They’ll emphasize quality- and quantity-of-service improvements, insist on efficiencies and demand a system of accountability. They’re more comfortable with such corporate solutions, and these are almost always detrimental to workers.

Rail is definitely detrimental to jobs, particularly those of bus drivers. A train can do the work of several buses, thereby reducing work opportunities and the consequent union strength of the labor force. Mann is especially conscious of this fact, since he witnessed the closing of a factory where he was an organizer.

This is hard to comprehend for most people, but this the ideoological foundation of the BRU.

I was directed to your website from the Grist story. I want to thank you for your reasoned response – I was thinking many of the things you said were probably the case.

I am a Geographer and Transit student/rider in Iowa City so I am always glad to hear people thinking and writing about these issues.

–Robert