Bus Service Protest

* Re “Proposed Cuts in Popular Valley Bus Lines Protested at MTA Hearing,” Nov. 14.

The hypocrisy of so-called transit advocates was evident last week when they demanded continuation of Metropolitan Transportation Authority express bus service from the San Fernando Valley after the Metro Red Line opens to North Hollywood. Why would anyone pay up to $2 more to ride a slower, less reliable bus when they have a better choice. The MTA will actually increase bus service in the San Fernando Valley when the Metro Red Line opens in mid-2000--express service will be reduced but the new Metro Rapid Bus service along Ventura Boulevard will improve service for the Valley as well as the commute to downtown.

It really is getting better on the bus, and attempting to politicize the debate won’t change the MTA’s commitment to better serve our customers.

ALLAN LIPSKY

Chief Operating Officer

Metro Transportation Authority

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* It’s been glaringly obvious for quite some time that the MTA board does not care one whit about its customer base, as amply evidenced by the failure of even one of them to attend hearings on the proposed slash and burn of bus routes aimed at forcing transit riders to use an unfinished, unproven, overpriced subway. Being appointed, they seem to feel no obligation to service their clientele, or even attempt to look as if they care about the more than 1 million daily bus riders and other users of Los Angeles’ overburdened public (I would hesitate to call it rapid) transit system.

I would like to offer a simple (but not, I hope, overly simplistic) solution: Create a county statute requiring MTA board members to actually use the service themselves to get to and from their daily business. Let them, like the people most directly affected by their decisions, have to schedule their lives around the 183 and the 420. I suspect we’d see immediate and massive improvements in transit service.

GEORGE VAN WAGNER

North Hollywood