The MTA board voted to raise fares today, and just in time. After exactly one month of being car-less in L.A.,
yesterday I got my car back from the shop. And in a matter of minutes I felt
transformed from a real city dweller like they dwell everywhere else in
the world -- by healthy foot, in dialogue with the streets and sidewalks, part of a collective style of daily movement -- into just
another zonked-out L.A. driver, with no walkman beat, and dialoguing with nothing but my carhorn, radio, and cell phone.
There are lots of people in L.A. who are not as un-lucky. They poured by the hundreds into the MTA's big and foreboding downtown headquarters to protest the agency's proposed fare hike: Raising Metro day passes from $3 to an eventual $8, and monthly passes from $52 to $120, which would basically force countless L.A. families not expecting dramatic wage increases any time soon to chose between putting food on the table to getting to school or to work. The Bus Riders Union was, um, not ready to take it.
Because there's always more at play in L.A. than what's seen on the surface, the proposal was billed as a battle
between bus riders, who tend to be poor and working-class, and
aspirations for future rail projects, which tend to serve more affluent
commuters. The paper's editorial page, meanwhile, saw a ruse as nakedly
as everyone else, calling the MTA's plan "all brain and no heart"
and Mayor Villaraigosa's plan, consisting of smaller increases and taking out credit to make up the difference in the MTA defecit, "all heart and no brain." About 1,500 people jammed the MTA's public comment hearing today, forcing the agency to open overflow rooms. The LAT's Bottleneck blog provided constant updates from the testimonies of riders, with highlights here, here, and here. In the end, there was a compromise:
Bus fares will increase to $1.50 by July 1, 2010, then $1.80 by 2012. The $3 daily pass will jump to $5 by 2008, $6 in 2010 and $7.25 two years later. The $52 monthly pass will go up to $62 in 2008, $75 in 2010 and $90 in 2012.
The MTA also voted for a low $0.25 fare for seniors and the disabled. But overall, it's hard to tell who won. With the specter of rising housing costs, more density-minded development, and no sudden availability of magical eco-friendly flying cars, my guess is nobody.