POST-RIOT WATCH : Roll Models

Wheels are important to Californians in the best of times. In the worst of times they can be a matter of life and death. Wheels that turned during the Los Angeles riots--and are still turning, in fact--have gotten too little attention, we think, for what they meant in terms of heroics and of help for desperate people.

During the turmoil, for example, cabs of LA TAXI rushed National Guardsmen to their posts, carried injured people to hospitals and performed any mission that authorities called for.

After the riots, drivers asked the company whether it could help people in neighborhoods whose markets had been torched. The response was Operation Food Basket. For $1 each way, LA TAXI’s cabs carried residents out of damaged neighborhoods to food stores.

At first, the company made up the difference in cost. Then other businesses got wind of the project, as did City Hall, and donations began flowing in to keep the wheels turning.

The much bigger wheels of 142 RTD buses transported hundreds of police officers, troops, firefighters and refugees. Forty-three RTD vehicles were damaged and six employees were injured.

On Thursday RTD announced cut-rate fares between June and the end of September for people in riot-damaged neighborhoods. They can ride for 50 cents--less than half the prevailing rate--to stores, jobs, clinics or anyplace else they need to be, using coupons, not cash.

All in all, a mix of the kind of initiative and compassion that Los Angeles badly needs these days.