As someone who has never attended a BRU meeting, I can only speak to why I’ve decided not to attend BRU meetings. I get the BRU emails, but the org’s vehemenent anti-subway stance both puzzles me and turns me off of the org altogether. I’m all for more buses where needed — I think the 200 line esp. could use a few more buses — but that doesn’t make me shun all subway lines. They’re all part of the same system, and both are necessary to meet different needs –

As someone looking at BRU from the outside, I have to say I see it as an org that defines itself more against other transit orgs than for anything. Most of the emails I’ve gotten from BRU seem to me to espouse knee-jerk reactions (Resist all fare raises, period! Fight against subways, period!).

It may be that perhaps the internal BRU discussions don’t reflect this mood — and I hope that’s true. But the rhetoric communicated to those who may be at the stage of finding out more about BRU before joining is NOT one that makes the discerning transit taker join the group.

From the comments on this issue, it appears that the problems at BRU run deeper than the PR / comm level. But I can say with a good deal of confidence that at the v. least, BRU needs to work harder on conveying the reasons behind its positions, and on educating its members as to what these root reasons may be.

Kymberley — I corrected your title! Not sure how the mistake happend… but thanks for the info you’re offering via this blog :)

Had the consent decree not frozen fares for the first half of its existence, and the BRU cry “foul” everytime Metro proposed increasing fares during the second half, Metro would have taken in almost $700 million, just in the past five years, which would have completely paid for the operation of the 1.4 million hours of bus service Metro was forced to add under the consent decree.

Instead, Metro is facing a structural deficit of $1.8 billion over the next ten years, and now will have to both raise fares and eliminate the lowest ridership service just to keep running.

The BRU’s preferred option, which is to keep running all the service AND keep fares artificially low, would result in Metro going bankrupt by August of next year. That, dear yellow-shirted radicals, means NO buses to ride.

This is the legacy that the BRU has given the region.

Metro Rail serves all communities that it runs through in Los Angeles, and the wildly successful Blue Line primarily services minority and low-income commuters, simply based on the neighborhoods it serves. The extension of the rail network will allow all people to reach jobs and activities throughout the Los Angeles area; the low-cost monthly pass allows all riders access to areas throughout Los Angeles, without the additional hassle and inherent unreliability of bus lines that over-crowd and become stuck in traffic.

Whether the BRU is motivated by ulterior motives, or simply uninformed, their arguments have caused harm to Los Angeles transit needs. The long-term answer to overcrowding is more capacity, and the only sure way to provide reliable capacity on the most crowded and busy routes is through additional rail lines. Increasing access throughout LA County is the surest way to help minority and low-income residents; Eric Mann’s bus-only policy serves, either inadvertently or negligently, to advocate that those low-income car-less patrons remain stuck in their under-served neighborhoods.

Finally, increasing access throughout the county will drive up ridership, and driving up ridership will allow Metro to take the revenues to the bank, and ridership numbers to Sacramento, to ask for more funding to build more infrastructure; for all of us who find ourselves loving life in Los Angeles but pining for New York City transit, the only sure way to improve and expand the metro system is to drive up ridership, and the only way to drive up ridership is to provide a consistent, reliable, and safe service that people *want* to take and *prefer* to driving, not just more busses. (see: red line to Universal City for Citywalk restaurants, or Hollywood for restaurants and clubs, or gold line to Pasadena for old town and shops, or blue line to Long Beach for the harbor and tourist attractions).

The BRU fulfills an important role in transit politics because they focus on representing the majority of people who ride on public transit, who are overwhelmingly poorer people of color.

And the Bus Riders Union has done a miserable job of representing them. It is an organization that knows zero about public transit. It knows zero about operations, financing, planning or laws and regulations. Worse, it feels it is entitled to categorically deny and dismiss these realities because the members feel they are victims somehow entitles them to an exemption.

The Bus Riders Union cultivates its membership from non-riders drawn from Eric Mann’s leftie Rolodex and bus riders who like what the group accomplishes because it somehow sticks it to whitey. These members do not stray too far from Eric Mann’s script.

They have made perfectly valid points in criticizing the neglect that the bus system has received and the misuse of public funds to build stupendously expensive pet projects that disproportionately benefit a whiter, wealthier population.

The Bus Riders Union has poisoned the well with this argument. And the argument is dead. The BRU’s points were never valid.

The primary beneficiaries of rail projects are the same users who ride the buses. There is no fare barrier (rail is not made expensive to keep poor dark-skinned riders away) and there is no service barrier (stops do not deliberately bypass the ghetto). And Metro has left the service grid intact, so riders have a choice to avoid trains.

Metro Rail has offered a fast, reliable alternative over the bus, and this has enabled riders new work, educational and recreational opportunities. This is why the Red Line has over 125,000 riders, Blue Line 80,000, Green Line 40,000 and Orange and Gold lines 20,000 apiece.

Not even Metro’s riders tolerate the last resort of local service, but this is what Mann wants.

Mann is more concerned with the interests of the bus drivers and Metro workers than the riders. He hopes the Consent Decree created more jobs than were lost when the General Motors plant in Van Nuys closed.

The fact of the matter is that such statements may be controversial but the BRU has spent most of its time successfully lobbying for more buses and lower fares for people who don’t have the luxury of driving in LA.