LOS ANGELES COUNTY : MTA to Resume Selling Monthly Bus Passes

Monthly bus passes, which appeared to be headed for oblivion under a bus fare increase, will be made available again beginning Friday, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Tuesday.

MTA spokeswoman Andrea Greene said the popular monthly passes will be on sale Friday and Saturday at all the MTA’s 460 token sales outlets, at the regular price of $42. After Sept. 10, she said, passengers will be able to purchase a $23 pass that will be good for the rest of the month.

Multilingual brochures will also be made available early Friday alerting passengers to the resumption of sales, Greene said, and commercials regarding the changes will be broadcast beginning Thursday.

“For now, we’re back to how things were prior to the new fare structure,” Greene said.

The announcement came in the wake of a federal court order last week that temporarily blocked an MTA fare restructuring. The MTA is hoping that a federal appeals court today will lift the court order issued Thursday that prevented the transit agency from raising the bus fare from $1.10 to $1.35 and eliminating the monthly passes.

U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. set a hearing Monday on claims that the fare increase discriminates against mostly poor and minority bus riders.

In court papers, the MTA has complained that the court order would create “administrative problems and confusion among MTA’s patrons because the monthly pass will start in the second week of the month and could terminate on Sept. 12 if a preliminary injunction is not granted.”

However, Greene said it is unclear what will happen to pass holders should the court side with the MTA before the end of the month.

“Right now, we’re only dealing with complying with the federal court order,” she said.