By Caroline Woon
Daily Bruin Contributor
After 14 years and $6.1 billion, the Los Angeles Metropolitan
Transportation Authority celebrated the opening of its Metro Rail
Red Line extension Saturday, despite objections of a bus riders
advocacy group that wanted a larger share of the money used to
expand L.A.’s bus system.
Three new subway stations in North Hollywood, Universal City and
at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue have been built along
the 6.3-mile extension, expanding the Metro Rail system to nearly
60 miles between the San Fernando Valley and L.A.
“Commuters can get from the valley to downtown in less
than a half an hour, rain or shine, no matter what the traffic
conditions are,” said Marc Littman, public relations director
of the MTA. “It’s like building a 13- or 14-lane
freeway in one of most congested corridors in the country.
“The only thing that’s going to get people out of
their cars is public transportation that saves them time and
money,” he continued. “In this case, it saves them
both.”
Though the long-awaited event is perceived by some as a blessing
for L.A.’s commuters, the city’s Bus Riders Union says
the metro diverted much-needed funds from the Metro bus system.
“For the last decade, the MTA has spent $4.5 billion on a
Red Line project that will serve no more than 15 percent of their
customers, who are disproportionately white, upper-class and
suburban,” said Deborah Orosz, spokeswoman for the BRU, a
multiracial civil rights organization.
“In the meantime, buses that serve over 400,000 riders
daily ““ overwhelmingly low-income people of color ““ are
increasingly overcrowded and dilapidated,” she said.
Orosz added that the MTA’s construction of the North
Hollywood segment of the Red Line violates the provisions of a 1996
federal court order to implement a five-year plan for expanded bus
service that would link riders to jobs, schools and medical centers
throughout the county.
“In signing that document, the MTA agreed to make the bus
system the first priority for funding,” she said. “But
they have been spending 70 percent of funding on rail projects, and
the question is whether they are creating a system that goes a few
miles for a few people, or a countywide mass transit system that
can carry half a million people all over.”
But the new Metro Rapid Bus lines may actually be the first step
the MTA is taking toward addressing the problem of inadequate bus
service, according to its proponents.
Rapid buses ““ which run from Santa Monica to Montebello
and from the Warner Center to the Universal City Red Line station
““ are designed to provide speedier, more efficient
transportation by making fewer stops and using what is known as the
bus signal priority system.
Each of the approximately 100 new Rapid buses is equipped with a
loop-transponder detector that will lengthen green signals up to 10
seconds, allowing them to continue through intersections without
stopping.
According to MTA spokesman Ed Scannell, this new system could
cut the travel time of commuters across the valley and the L.A.
basin by as much as 25 percent.
“This project is designed to get people, especially
commuters, to their destinations faster,” he said.
The new Red Line stations are also located near popular tourist
destinations including Mann’s Chinese Theatre, the Hollywood
Bowl, Universal City Walk and the North Hollywood Arts District
“On this new extension, for instance, one of the stops is
Universal City.” Scannell said. “People can just walk
right across the street to Universal Studios or City Walk. And the
price is certainly right ““ it’s only $1.35, compared to
the $7 people would normally have to pay for parking.”
But with the introduction of the Rapid buses the MTA will cut
limited express bus service in the Wilshire/Whittier and Ventura
corridors, and critics say these attempts to improve the existing
bus system do not offer an effective solution.
“We were initially very supportive of Rapid buses,”
Orosz said. “But the MTA has turned what was originally a
16-line project into a two-line system. (They are) only
implementing a tiny little piece of an entire program that the Bus
Riders Union wants to see.”