6 Arrested as Protesters Disrupt Rail-Line Meeting

Calling the Pasadena light-rail line’s construction racist and illegal, more than 50 protesters Wednesday night halted a meeting of the line’s new governing authority before police broke up the demonstration and arrested six people.

More than a dozen Pasadena police officers took the leaders of Bus Riders Union, a passenger rights group, away in handcuffs after members, chanting and banging drums and tambourines, forced the Pasadena Blue Line Construction Authority to adjourn for 20 minutes.

Bus Riders leader Martin Hernandez called the five-member board an “illegitimate body” and demanded it be dismantled.

The group contends that the newly formed Blue Line Authority was designed to circumvent a consent decree the group signed with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to reduce overcrowding and improve bus service.

A new state law stripped the MTA of the responsibility for building the Pasadena rail line and gave it to the Blue line authority. The MTA now plans to give the authority more than $300 million, money the Bus Riders Union wants spent on buses.

Authority Chairman Paul Little and other officials contend that most of the Pasadena line users will be minorities. The 13.6-mile line will run from Union Station through Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, South Pasadena to Pasadena.