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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.”

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