Feedback from DASH Hearings: Cuts Bad, Hikes Reasonable

Photo: Fred Camino/Flickr

Tonight is the last of the five hearings on the major service changes that have been proposed for LADOT's transit services, DASH, Commuter Express, City Ride and Charter Bus Service.  The first four hearings have seen crowds of various sizes, with packed house's at the hearings in the San Fernando Valley's hearing and the one at Caltrans headquarters in the Downtown.  However, the message from the hearings was the same: raise fares if you must, but don't cut service.

Echoing what a Metro rider survey showed just a couple of weeks ago, DASH and other riders are willing to pay more for better service...or in this case the same service.  Transit Coalition member Donna Gooley writes of the SFV's hearing:

Southern California Transit Advocates Kymberleigh Richards tells a similar story from the Downtown.  According to Richards, almost nobody mentioned the fare increases but speaker after speaker rose to defend their favored bus routes.  Richards noted that the many of the riders had a greater degree of sophistication in their testimony than might be expected.  For example, riders of the Thousand Oaks service wanted to make certain the bus continued to run all the way to the end of its current line because stopping the bus at the county border makes it useless to them.

Richards also tells the story of a senior citizen rider from Fairfax who railed against local DASH service because it replicated that of the existing Metro Service along Beverly Boulevard.  As a current resident of the Fairfax area, I'm keeping more information on her name secret because anecdotally I can tell you that residents here overwhelmingly prefer the DASH service to the Metro Service.  I can also tell you the $1 difference in cost has a lot to do with that preference.

If you've got stories from the DASH hearings, either present or future, that you wish to share please or would like to share your testimony, please do so in the comments section.  For more information on the proposed changes, click here.  For the official testimony of the Southern California Transit Advocates, click here.  To read the thoughts of other transit advocates to the changes, click here.