BRU Sets Sights on President Obama. Urges Overruling of FTA Decision on Metro Civil Rights Complaints

The Federal Transit Administration seems pleased with the progress being made by Metro to change the way it does business to be in compliance with federal civil rights statutes.  Rather than requiring major changes to the way Metro does business, the FTA seems content with changes to its outreach and reporting methods.  The FTA began a Civil Rights Title VI review of Metro last year after complaints from the Bus Riders Union and other civil rights and transit advocacy groups.  These groups hoped the FTA would reverse the over 1 million hours of cuts to bus service that Metro has ordered since the end of a judicial consent decree mandating increases in service expired in 2008.

Already knowing there was no mechanism to appeal the FTA's decision, the BRU rallied in front of MTA headquarters yesterday kicking off a campaign calling on President Barack Obama to overrule the FTA's decision.

“FTA is ignoring the smoking gun uncovered by its own civil rights team,” said Sunyoung Yang, lead organizer at the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, a grassroots civil rights membership organization of LA’s transit riders that has battled LA Metro for years. “Rather than hold Metro responsible, Administrator Rogoff is allowing the agency to paper over its civil rights abuses through more studies to make its civil rights violations disappear through administrative sleight of hand. Since Rogoff and FTA have abdicated their responsibility to enforce Title VI, we’re calling on President Obama to bring real civil rights to LA bus riders and order the restoration of lost transit service.”

LA Metro’s history of civil rights abuses has been well-documented. In a landmark lawsuit filed in 1994, the Bus Riders Union sued Metro for racial discrimination, resulting in a 10 years of court oversight and close to $3 billion in improvements to the bus system. FTA’s investigation showed that Metro officials returned to their previous practices almost immediately after the court supervision expired. Given that history, bus riders and their allies were appalled that FTA would not use its enforcement powers to pressure Metro to remedy the harm its policies inflicted on 500,000 mostly Black and Latino bus riders.