Judge Blocks Bus Fare Hike, Sets Review

Hours after a 25-cent bus fare increase went into effect Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked it, agreeing that poor and minority passengers would suffer hardship under the higher fare.

After listening to charges that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority discriminated against its predominantly poor ridership, U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. issued a temporary restraining order rolling back the fare hike. He set a Sept. 12 hearing to decide whether to permanently block the first fare increase in six years.

In addition to raising fares from $1.10 to $1.35 Thursday, the agency also eliminated most discount bus passes. Although Hatter’s ruling requires the agency to reinstate the passes, only selected outlets will have them available today. Full implementation of monthly pass distribution and sales is expected by Tuesday, MTA spokeswoman Andrea Green said.

The fare increases were authorized by the MTA board after a series of raucous public hearings, including one so fierce that transit police clad in riot gear were summoned. The 13-member MTA board approved the increase in July, claiming that it would give the agency $40 million a year that was needed to balance its books.

“For the MTA to balance its budget on the backs of the poor is unacceptable and the judge agreed,” said Constance Rice, an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which filed the class-action civil rights lawsuit on behalf of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, Bus Riders Union and other groups.

“This case is not about bus vs. rail, or inner city vs. suburbs; it’s about whether the MTA is required by law to implement a transit plan that does not disproportionately place burdens on any one group. Are we spreading these resources fairly?” Rice said.

Bus riders were elated over Thursday’s development. Curtis Wical, 32, estimated that his transit costs would have doubled with the fare hike because he could no longer buy a pass.

“It’s a victory for bus riders,” said Wical, a Hollywood resident.

Some MTA board members condemned the judge’s decision. Supervisor Mike Antonovich called it a “reckless ruling,” saying it illustrated “unfitness to serve” as a jurist.

“What the judge has done is to interject the federal government into the establishing of bus fares,” Antonovich said. “What are you going to have the federal government do--determine library fees and parking fines and parking rates? This is absurd.”

Others applauded Hatter’s action.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Councilman Richard Alatorre. “I didn’t believe we had to impose a fare increase and do away with passes because of the disproportionate impact it had on transit-dependent people in the inner city.”

Agency officials declined to comment, saying the judge’s decision was under review, and canceled a board meeting scheduled for today. However, the agency filed a request Thursday asking the judge to reconsider his actions, said board member and Glendale Mayor Larry Zarian.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, accused the MTA of “inflicting severe and irreversible harm” on bus riders--most of whom are indigent minorities who rely completely on public transit--by raising fares. It alleges that the agency intentionally funneled money to rail projects, particularly the planned Pasadena light rail system, at the expense of bus passengers.

By favoring rail projects, which serve primarily affluent white customers, the MTA operates a “separate and unequal system of public transportation,” in violation of the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the suit alleges.

The plaintiffs also cite what they say is a history of discrimination by the MTA and the Southern California Rapid Transit District, one of its forerunners.

The rail projects uniformly have more funding and better security, the lawsuit alleges. The Pasadena line was allocated $123 million in the current budget, $50 million of which came from discretionary funds that could have been used to revive the ailing bus system, the plaintiffs contend.

They argue that MTA officials have turned a deaf ear to their complaints of racial and social inequity despite repeated public and private meetings of coalition members and the MTA since 1992.

In court Thursday, Hatter sharply questioned Rice about the timing of the lawsuit, asking: “Why is it you waited until the eve of the fare hike and the cessation of bus passes?”

Rice responded that the citizen groups had done all they could in pursuing every avenue toward halting the fare increase, including asking Mayor Richard Riordan to schedule an emergency MTA board meeting to reconsider alternatives to a fare hike.

Richard Katzman, attorney for the MTA, said that the agency had done its best to cut costs, negotiating new contracts with three labor unions, trimming more than 600 staff positions and planning service cuts on underutilized lines. He said the agency was unable to shift money allocated for rail construction to bus operations.

“It’s not one big pool of funds that can be moved around,” he said. “There are restrictions on those funds.”

Katzman said that if the agency did not increase fares, it would be forced to cut bus and rail service.

Although not commenting directly on the merits of the lawsuit, Hatter said that the plaintiffs had met the technical requirement for winning a temporary restraining order by proving that the fare increase would cause irreparable harm and hardship. He said Rice had “shown there are serious questions here.”

The more than two dozen bus riders at Thursday’s proceedings walked outside afterward, hugging one another and cheering.

“What we showed today is that transit is a human right; it’s essential to living in this city,” said Eric Mann, director of the nonprofit Labor/Community Strategy Center, the lead plaintiff trying to roll back fares.