Help the Bus Riders Keep Fares Low : LA IMC

April 16, 2007

Dear members, allies, and friends,

We come to you in a moment of great urgency, at a time when the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) plans to dramatically increase bus fares, if we do not come together and stop them. At the March MTA Board meeting Roger Snoble, the CEO of the MTA, announced a proposal for major increases in the price of public transportation in Los Angeles. If not reversed, the fare hikes would increase as follows:

	Now	July 2007	January 2009
Regular One Way Pass/Tokens/Owl Service	$1.25/$1.10/$.75	$1.25	$2.00
All Day Pass	$3	$5	$8
Weekly Bus Pass	$14	$20	$32
Semi-monthly Bus Pass	$27	ELIMINATED
Student Bus Pass (K-12)	$20	$45	$72
Regular Monthly Bus Pass	$52	$75	$120
College Bus Pass	$30	$52	$84
Senior/Disabled Bus Pass	$12	$37.50	$60

We strongly oppose this fare hike, because we believe that any raises from the already high $52 monthly passs will be devastating to working families-- the strides that the movement has made towards a "living wage" would in effect be stripped away by the increased cost of public transportation. Imagine Black, Latino, API, and white working class bus riders with 3, 4, and 5 family members using public transportation, paying $375 a month in July and $600 a month by 2009 just for bus service--which by the way MTA is also working to significantly cut in service hours.

These fare increases will:
* destroy the economic viability of low-income Black and Latino and immigrant families.
* create significant increase in respiratory disease
* contribute to, rather than reduce, global warming
* violate the civil rights of bus riders
* drive as many as 25% to 40% of riders off public transportation.

The solution to this problem will require the MTA to dramatically cut and reverse its rail spending projects. This is because the "budget shortfall", that MTA insists as the reason behind these fare hikes, is artificially created and based on the bad and wasteful choices MTA is making to subsidize rail projects and rail riders at the expense of low-income bus riders. Mayor Villaraigosa--who has advocated a "Red Line Subway to the Sea" and has 4 votes on the MTA board, needs to realize that these rail dreams are destructive to working people. He himself only 10 years ago warned the MTA not to build rail projects with funds that had to be allocated towards and protected for bus purchase and service.

We believe that Mayor Villaraigosa is crucial in stopping this fare hike proposal. The Mayor's MTA appointees include Councilperson Bernard Parks, Richard Katz and David Fleming. If Mayor Villaraigosa changes his mind and strongly opposes any MTA fare increases, even if it means ending plans to build rail, and reaches out to Supervisors Molina, Burke, and Yaroslavasky, we feel there is a good chance we can get the 5 votes needed to stop these fare increases.

We need you to join us in this fight to stop the Fare Hike. We have already won a major procedural victory by forcing the MTA Board to postpone their first proposed fare increase hearing, we have been working with L.A. Supervisor Gloria Molina to assure that the public hearing will be held on a Saturday with full attendance by MTA Board Members. So, what can you do?

We need you to call and write Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and urge him to withdraw the MTA's racist fare hike proposal.
f you have any influence on L.A. Councilperson Bernard Parks, Richard Katz, David Fleming, L.A. Supervisors Gloria Molina, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, Zev Yaraslovasky, Long Beach City Councilperson Bonnie Lowenthal, Santa Monica City Council Pam O'Connor or Glendale City Councilperson Ara Narajarian, we urge you to call and write them to withdraw or vote NO on MTA's fare increase proposal.
Commit to turning out a strong contingent for the MTA's fare increase public hearing and the meeting in which the MTA Board votes to reject or accept the fare increase.
Support this important campaign financially, by donating.
Join us at our first rally on Wednesday, April 18th at Mayor Villaraigosa's State of the City Address at East Valley Senior High in North Hollywood as we Urge Mayor Villaraigosa to Withdraw MTA's Racist Fare Hike.

We believe we can win this fight.

Bus Riders Union Planning Committee

MAKE A DONATION

ACTION ALERT

Join us

April 17, 2007 9:30 AM
City Hall on the
NE Corner of
1st St. and Spring St.
for a Social Movement State of the City Address calling for a "Pro-Environment/Human Rights Los Angeles, Not a Los Angeles Police State!"

April 18, 2007 3:00 PM
gather outside Red Line
North Hollywood Station
(Lankershim & Chandler)
or
just meet us there at
East Valley High School
(5525 Vineland Ave., North Hollywood, CA)
at
the State of the City Address to Urge Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to Vote No on MTA's Racist Fare Hike

SUPPORT OUR FIGHT

STEP 1

Contact MTA Board
Members
and
Tell them Vote NO
on MTA's Fare
Hike Proposal

STEP 2

SPREAD THE WORD
Print out Flyers, posters,
or better stop by our
office (3780 Wilshire
Blvd. #1200) and pick
them up to pass out at school, work, or your
favorite local store.

STEP 3

JOIN THE FIGHT!
Join our movement to
create an accessible first class bus system.

April 21, 10 AM
BRU Monthly Meeting
Immnanuel Presbyterian
Church
3300 Wilshire Blvd.
(@ Berendo)

Bus Riders Union Office
3780 Wilshire Blvd. #1200 (@ Western)
Los Angeles, CA 90010
[Western/Wilshire Red Line Station, 720, 757, 207, 20, 21]

Campaign endorsers: Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA), Community Coalition, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), Service Employee International Union (SEIU) 1877, Community Coalition, Westchester High School Administration and Students, Students for Educational Reform at Los Angeles City College, Action for Grassroots Empowerment and Neighborhood Development Alternatives (AGENDA), Angelican Lutheran Church of Pico Union
Contact us [213 387 2800] if your church, union, school, work, wants to endorse.

I do not agree with this fare hike (or much of the MTA's inept practices), but am in total disagreement with the actions and position of the BRU, as a minority transit activist from East LA. The organization is funded by unions and oil/auto concerns, is run by an rich white ideological extremist who pays himself and his family 100s of thousands of dollars to go on vacations (at the expense of the working class minority members of the BRU), suppots policies and transportation ideas that are illogical and to the detriment of working class Latino and Black communities, and manipulates the passion of many working class minorities committed to making LA better.

I studied and attended meetings for this organization, and am disgusted and appalled at these poverty pimps, using my community and race as a guise to push their alterior motives. bitching about a train that will run through East LA becuase of a few cemetary plots is not rational, fighting a rail line that will serve south LA and Crenshaw in the name of better transit for minorities is completely illogical and an oxymoron.

I am a Latino man from East LA genuinely concenred about improving the public transportation of my comunity and those like it, and the BRU does not represent me or the goals that will create the betterment of it. They are merely giving racist politicians a tool to shove dysfunctional cheap transit alternatives into my community that already has a history of getting the "short end of the stick". I say that as an educated urban planner who appreciates busses, lived (and rode) through the hell of the RTD(rough tough and dangerous), and wants the best for the Barrio.

Stop using the race card damnit, you are invalidating genuine action to address racuism with your bullshit BRU.

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