Working Families Brace for the Strain of 20% Hike in Bus Fares

Bus riders in Los Angeles. The MTA has scheduled a bus fare increase of approximately 20% to take effect on July 1.

Eduardo Garcia takes advantage of the time he spends waiting at his regular bus stop to look for extra work in nearby businesses.

Garcia doesn't have much choice these days, and an increase in bus fares of approximately 20%, scheduled to take effect on July 1, means he'll have to work harder than ever.

Garcia says he buys two monthly passes at $62 apiece, one for himself and one for his wife. He also spends $60 a month on student passes for the couple's two children.

Eduardo Garcia (with his family) purchases two monthly passes for himself and his wife, and two student passes for their children.

"If I add them all, I can say that a big chunk of my salary goes to transportation," Garcia says. "Now you can imagine with the increases. I'm already very tight with our monthly expenses. I don't know how I'm going to do it. I'm not a quitter, so I'm looking to work overtime to cover the costs. The problem is that the economy is bad at all levels and nobody's hiring."

Garcia isn't the only one upset with the increase by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which oversees a regional system of bus and train routes. Members of the Bus Riders Union (BRU) — a non-profit advocacy group that has long been at odds with the MTA over service levels, the cost of fares and the ongoing expansion of the agency's rail system — recently staged a hunger strike that went on for eight days in protest of the recent fare hikes.

Members of the Bus Riders Union (BRU) link together prior to their ejection from the MTA boardroom.

BRU members followed up the hunger strike with acts of civil disobedience to protest the fare hikes and proposes cuts in service, disrupting the proceedings for more than two hours during a recent MTA board meeting. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department deputies eventually escorted dozens of BRU members from the room, and arrested two of them.

"The rise in urban transportation rates is the last straw in users' lives," said Manuel Criollo, a BRU member. "Those increases affect the poorest, the most beaten by the economic crisis and discrimination, and we want to represent them.

Protesting the increase in urban transportation fares with an eight-day hunger strike.

Bus rider Nicolas Martinez told the MTA board members that he's especially upset that the increase in fares does not mean better service. The MTA is planning a reduction in service as part of a plan to balance the budget of the transportation agency.

"We're going to pay more and we're going to waste more time waiting for buses — time we could use to work — because they're going to cut bus routes," Martinez said.

Rosa Miranda, who participated in the eight-day hunger strike, said that the $26-a-month increase in transportation costs her family will see because of the fare hike cuts into the basic household budget.

"For you it's a tip in a fancy restaurant," Miranda said. "For me and many of us it's three days of food."

The BRU's Criollo said the recent eight-day hunger strike and demonstration in the MTA board room are only the beginning of a campaign to roll back the fare increases, with everything from legal challenges to efforts to mobilize demonstrations against the hikes under consideration.

Nora Alicia Estrada is a writer for Impulso.

Photos by Michelle Lopez and Impulso.

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