MTA Reports Little Effect on 1st Day of Riders Union Strike

LOS ANGELES — The Bus Riders Union launched its first general fare strike Monday against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority by urging passengers on a few routes not to pay this week in protest of the agency’s plans for an increase.

MTA spokesman Marc Littman said the first day of the protest had “virtually no impact on our service,” other than scattered reports of organizers briefly boarding buses at a few locations.

Littman said it could not be determined if there was any impact on MTA revenues until the fare boxes aboard the buses can be emptied and counted.

The fare strike is the latest in a series of actions by the Bus Riders Union to draw attention to the state of the nation’s second-largest bus system. The group is locked in a federal court fight with the MTA over compliance with a 1996 consent decree requiring reductions in overcrowding and improvements in bus service.

A spokeswoman for the group, Kikanza Ramsey, said teams of organizers boarded some buses during the morning and afternoon commutes to urge riders to refuse to pay the fare or show their monthly passes. “The fare increase is the proverbial slap in the face to bus riders,” she said. “People continue to be outraged at the level of service.”

The MTA is proposing to increase the basic cash fare by a dime to $1.45, the price of discount tokens by a nickel to 95 cents, and the price of the monthly pass by $3 to $45.

If the MTA board approves the fare increase--the first in more than four years--the cost of weekly and semimonthly passes and discount passes for senior citizens, students and the disabled would increase Nov. 1.

Ramsey said the fare strike is just beginning. “There are half a million bus riders out there. We will keep going and keep growing it. It does take an amount of time to spread the word.”