The MTA’s unfair fares

ROGER SNOBLE, please say you’re kidding. It’s hard to imagine the Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief could be serious about the fare hikes he proposed last month for L.A. County buses and Metro Rail trains, which seem calculated to cause the most harm to the system’s most vulnerable customers and undo years of steady gains in coverage and ridership.

The MTA’s proposal would hit riders like an express train ramming a Prius. It would raise the price for a senior citizen monthly pass to $60 from $12 in just two years — a whopping 400% increase for people who often can’t get around by car and live on fixed incomes. The cost of a day pass would soar to $8 from $3 over the same period, while regular monthly passes would go to $120 from $52 and the single-ride fee would jump to $2 from $1.25.

That’s no way to run a railroad.

Even small increases can have a dramatic effect on transit use. When the Riverside Transit Agency raised its fares by 25% in 2005, ridership dropped by 11%. It later rebounded, possibly because of gas prices, but one can only imagine what would happen if the MTA were successful in more than doubling its rates. With record gas prices and worsening gridlock, such a draconian increase would leave the transit-dependent stranded and ensure even longer commutes for workers.

The MTA has a serious structural budget deficit, thanks mainly to a consent decree in 1996 to settle a lawsuit by bus riders. The result is that the agency hasn’t raised fares in more than a decade, even as it has been obliged to invest $1.3 billion to improve bus service. The end of the consent decree in October gives the MTA the opportunity to put its financial house in order. L.A. transit riders are getting a remarkably good deal compared with other cities, and it’s only reasonable to ask them to pay more of their share of the system’s operating cost, most of which is funded by state and county sales taxes. But there’s a difference between raising fares and gouging riders.

One has to suspect that the MTA’s fare proposal is a negotiating ploy. By floating such an outrageous and impractical increase, Snoble is providing cover for the MTA board: If it approves a smaller hike, its members can look like populist heroes even though they’re still raising fares. At least we hope that’s the case. If Snoble is serious, he could undermine his own system and pave the way for yet another consent decree. And if he’s joking, it isn’t funny.