Letters to the Editor: Billions for Metro rail haven’t bought more L.A. transit riders. Focus on buses

To the editor: You write in your editorial on the 10 Freeway fire and closure, “Los Angeles has been on a public transportation building boom, thanks to ... four sales tax increases since 1980 to pay for bus and rail projects.”

Unfortunately, Metro has been undercutting the bus system since 1985, when its predecessor agencies stopped subsidizing bus fares with Proposition A sales tax revenues and instead shifted the funds to the Blue Line train to Long Beach.

Since then, Metro has spent more than $20 billion on a rail system with 100 stations, while its 18,000-stop bus system has languished. The impact on transit service and demand has been terrible. Since the end of the federal consent decree in 2007, federal statistics show L.A.’s transit ridership cratering.

L.A. will never “dethrone the car as king and usurp the freeways,” though we can and should charge tolls. It is foolish to expect residents to give up the freedom delivered by automobility, but we can deliver a much better transit system at lower cost, regardless of the 10 Freeway.

It all starts with making cost-effective choices, something Metro has little experience doing.

James E. Moore II, Los Angeles

The writer is a professor emeritus of transportation engineering at USC.

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To the editor: As we rush to rebuild the burned section of the 10 Freeway, I’m surprised that we haven’t heard any input from the community members who speak up whenever a new transit line or apartment building is proposed in their neighborhood.

Freeways are noisy and environmentally disastrous, and they divide communities. I’m not opposed to all freeways, of course — I just feel that this freeway threatens the character of the area. Not to mention that undesirable elements could use the freeway to come to the area and commit crimes.

Instead of working 24/7 to repair the freeway, why don’t we spend several years and millions of dollars on feasibility studies and community meetings to make absolutely sure it’s the right call?

This process has worked wonders for L.A.’s public transit system and housing supply, so I see no reason why we shouldn’t apply it to our car-centric infrastructure as well.

Truman Capps, Studio City