Civil Rights

We're the BRU. This is our fight Mass transportation is a human right We want 50 cent fares and $20 passes ‘cause mass transportation belongs to the masses -BRU Chant, heard yesterday.

Note: The authors are active advocates in the urban sustainability movement, focusing on non-motorized transportation in low-income urban areas. As mixed race women of color, we believe that we are in a unique position to bridge the advocacy communities trying to better conditions for the urban poor and for the environment. In this series, we draw on our experiences in the bicycle and environmental movements to shed light on the unfortunate divides we have noticed between urban sustainability communities and low-income communities of color.

A week before Christmas a decal titled "Metro Notice of Civil Rights" began appearing on Metro bus and rail vehicles. This is a response to the recent FTA Title VI Compliance Review stipulation "Metro must provide an updated Notification to the public of their rights within 30 days" (see page18).

fta civil rights compliance review for L.A Metro

Yesterday, the Federal Transit Administration publicly released its Title VI Civil Rights Review of Metro that was completed earlier this year.  The FTA outlines a series of deficiencies in almost half of its twelve civil rights categories.  Metro insists these are minor issues that can be easily fixed while critics of the agency call the report "a crushing indictment of the MTA."  The document is available as a word document off the FTA's website and a pdf off Streetsblog's Sribd Page.

Late last week, most likely in response to a report by the Bus Riders Union and their community allies, a letter from Metro CEO Art Leahy dismissing the Civil Rights complaints of the BRU appeared on The Source.  The letter basically announced that the Title VI complaints against the agency announced last Spring were dismissed, leading to much cheering from Metro supporters.

A Missing Story

USDOT Deputy Secretary John Porcari kicked off the Transportation Equity Network’s “One Nation, Indivisible” conference yesterday with a call to think long-term. By 2050, he said, we can expect the U.S. population to grow by 100 million people, and nearly all of them will live in large urban centers. Problems like crumbling infrastructure, inadequate transit systems, grinding traffic and pollution will be much worse then if we don’t start acting today.