Protest of Bus Cutbacks Ends in 6 Arrests

Protesting the MTA’s scaling back of some overnight bus service, more than 50 people rallied and formed a picket line Saturday night across Wilshire Boulevard, blocking traffic for almost an hour before police broke up the demonstration and arrested six people.

The picketers, most of them members of a passenger rights group called the Bus Riders Union, chanted and walked in circles around the crosswalk at Western Avenue.

LAPD officers issued repeated warnings that the crowd was illegally blocking traffic and must disperse. Just before 8 p.m., they took into custody six protesters who ignored their orders.

Group members said graveyard shift workers depend on the nighttime service that is being reduced or eliminated. Eighteen routes will be affected at a loss of 40,000 service hours annually.

“People are going to be forced to walk up to a mile to get to a parallel route,” said Kikanza Ramsey, an organizer with the riders group who was taken into custody. The advocacy organization is asking that the transit agency revoke the cutbacks at the next MTA board meeting.

Earlier in the week, Metropolitan Transportation Authority spokesman Ed Scannell said the agency was merely discontinuing night service on underused lines. MTA officials were not available for comment Saturday evening.

Union members said the MTA is a public agency that should not be permitted to only provide routes that are profitable. They also said the cutbacks violate a negotiated court settlement that mandated improved bus service.

While the intersection was blocked Saturday, drivers stuck in the jam grew visibly frustrated. As police stood by, one woman shouted from a stopped MTA bus: “Cops! Do something!”

Protesters rattled noisemakers and chanted, “Take back the night! We’ve just begun to fight!”

Members of a local janitors union who rely on late-night bus service to get home joined the protest. Dolores Martinez gets off her shift at 2:30 a.m. after cleaning offices in West Los Angeles and takes the bus home to the Rampart area.

She said she worries about having to walk alone several blocks and take an extra bus. “I have two kids. What if something happens to me?”