In Los Angeles, Cuts Will Make Long Bus Commute Longer

[marmar]

from the NY Times:



By JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: July 3, 2011


LOS ANGELES — The women shuffle back and forth as they wait just after 7 a.m. for the orange bus crawling down the street. It will be more than an hour before they arrive at work, and soon the same journey may stretch to nearly two hours.

Though the roads in Los Angeles routinely jam with honking cars in the morning, there is also an almost invisible commuter class — the millions of people, most of them poor, who depend on the sprawling bus system.

Local officials push public transportation as the path to an environmentally friendly future, with plans for a subway to the sea and miles of other rail projects in the region. But at the same time, the financially struggling Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority is cutting back dozens of bus lines and shortening routes to save money that they say would be better spent elsewhere.

So the 305 line, which snakes from Watts in the southeast to Westwood in the northwest, will soon be gone, replaced this fall by what officials say is a more efficient hub-and-spoke system with trains and other bus routes. For the people who fill the bus each morning, the prospect sounds daunting. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/us/04bus.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all