Anger, Tears Greet Hike in Bus Fares : Transit: On first day of increase, some have don’t have enough money for monthly pass. Others complain service doesn’t merit higher cost.

Like many people, Mary Barbucescu depends on the bus to get around. So on Wednesday, the unemployed woman borrowed exactly $42 from a friend and begged an MTA bus driver for a ride to buy her monthly pass in Van Nuys.

The pass, she said, was her only chance at getting another job.

When she arrived, she saw a sign that sent her reeling, the latest brick on a pile of heartbreaks for Barbucescu, who last month learned that she was eligible for only one more month of food stamps. As of today, the sign read, bus passes cost $49.

She broke down in line and wept.

“There’s been more than one person crying in here today,” an MTA agent said through a bulletproof window at the customer service center at Van Nuys Boulevard and Sherman Way.

On Wednesday, one-way bus fares went up 25 cents, to $1.35, and monthly passes went up $7.

The increase, sought by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, caught many off guard, even though notices had been posted in MTA service centers and ads were placed in newspapers. Regular bus passengers complained that the price is going up as service declines.

“The monthly rate ain’t bad,” said Michael Panasuk of Van Nuys. “But hey, man, the service . . . well, it sucks.”

The 36-year-old printer said some lines stop running at 7 p.m. even though many people who ride the bus work much later in the night. “There are jobs that I wanted but couldn’t take because of that,” he said.

The bus fare increase had sparked a lawsuit brought by several groups representing mostly poor MTA bus riders. The lawsuit alleges that the MTA spends a disproportionate share of its money on building rail lines that benefit higher-income commuters at the expense of the poor minorities who make up the vast majority of bus riders.

Both sides agreed last week to the higher fare until U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr. rules on the lawsuit this spring. Hatter had temporarily blocked the price increase in September.

The cost of a monthly bus pass was increased to $49 but, in a compromise, stayed below the $60 authorized by Hatter. Monthly passes for the disabled and senior citizens increased to $12 from $10.

A dwindling ridership, cuts in federal and state aid and poor fiscal management in the past combined to create a $126-million budget deficit, said MTA spokeswoman Andrea Greene. MTA officials say it is the first increase in more than six years and brings bus fares into line with those in other large cities. Critics of the agency say the MTA is using poor, elderly and mostly minority bus riders to finance its rail line plans to connect outlying suburbs. The plans, however, are being drastically scaled back.

The politics of public transportation, however, made little difference to Maria Estrada of Pacoima, who sat in a folding chair at the bus service center, gathering her strength for a walk back to the bus bench--without the monthly pass she came to buy.

“I just don’t have the money today,” said Estrada, who has been sick. She brought $10 to pay for a senior pass that now costs $12.

The mood was much the same on San Fernando Valley streets, but most people simply dug a little deeper into their pockets to come up with another quarter to drop in the slot.

As riders grumbled on the first day of the rate hike, about 50 sign-carrying demonstrators stood outside MTA headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles to protest.

“We want the $1.10 fare and $42 monthly pass restored, and we want a financial commitment from the agency to fund the bus service before they go forward with huge rail construction projects they don’t have the money to fund,” said Lisa Duran, an organizer with the Bus Riders Union, one of the citizens groups organized to fight the increase.