Transportation Equity in Los Angeles: The MTA and Beyond

By Environmental Defense attorney Robert Garcia

Posted: 01-Dec-1999; Updated: 29-May-2003

Urban transit systems in most American cities
[are] a genuine civil rights issue...
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Los Angeles, the most car-conscious city in the country, also has the greatest unmet demand for public transportation. People without cars and the working poor with limited access to cars are disproportionately low-income people of color, low-income women, the elderly and the disabled. Equitable transportation policies must insure that these communities have access to jobs, loved ones, doctors, food stores, churches, parks and other basic needs of life that many of us take for granted.

In 1996, a federal district court recognized the inequities in the Los Angeles transit system in a historic civil rights class action suit on behalf of 350,000 L.A. bus riders, entitled Labor/Community Strategy Center v. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Under the terms of a court-ordered Consent Decree, the MTA agreed to the largest settlement in civil rights history, committing to invest over one billion dollars in bus system improvements over the next 10 years. This article describes the case, discusses how Environmental Defense is extending that precedent through non-litigation forms of advocacy, and suggests specific proposals for improving transportation equity for low-income and minority communities.

How the Case Was Won

The MTA case is a landmark victory, the first time that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was successfully used against a major transportation agency. Title VI and its regulations prohibit federally funded agencies from both "intentional discrimination" and "adverse disparate impact discrimination" on the basis of race, ethnicity or national origin. The Consent Decree signed by Judge Terry J. Hatter, Jr., was won because the plaintiff class provided ample evidence of such discrimination, there was a broad spectrum of support for their cause, and the settlement provided the most equitable and efficient solution to L.A.'s transportation problems.

The Evidence 

The MTA case documented an extensive history of disparate impact and intentional discrimination over the past 30 years. MTA discriminated against low-income people of color through vast overspending on its rail projects, which disproportionately benefited white communities, and through its funding for suburban buses and for MTA's own buses which served a primarily white ridership.

For example, while 94 percent of its ridership are bus riders, MTA customarily spends 70 percent of its budget on the six percent of its ridership that are rail passengers. Despite increasing demand, MTA reduced its peak hour bus fleet from 2200 to 1750 buses in the last decade. 1992 data reveal a $1.17 subsidy per boarding for an MTA bus rider. The subsidy for a Metrolink commuter rail rider was 18 times higher ($21.02); for a suburban Blue Line light rail passenger, more than nine times higher ($11.34); and for a Red Line subway passenger, two-and-a-half times higher ($2.92).

MTA customarily tolerated overcrowding levels of 140 percent of capacity on its buses. In contrast, there is no overcrowding of riders on Metrolink and MTA-operated rail lines.

MTA documents show huge disparities in spending for the personal security of its riders. While only three cents was spent for the security of each bus passenger in fiscal year 1993, 43 times as much ($1.29) was spent for the security of each passenger of Metrolink and the MTA Blue Line and 19 times as much (57 cents) for each passenger on the MTA Red Line subway.

Such disparate treatment has devastating social consequences. The Report of the Governor's Commission on the Los Angeles Riots, commonly known as the McCone Report, found that transportation agencies in Los Angeles County "handicapped minority residents in seeking and holding jobs, attending schools, shopping, and in fulfilling other needs." The "inadequate" and "prohibitively expensive" bus service contributed to the isolation that led to the 1964 Watts riots and rebellion, the report continued. Thirty years later, following the riots and rebellion in Los Angeles in the wake of the acquittals in the Rodney King beating, MTA commissioned a new study on inner city transit needs that echoed the recommendations of the McCone Report. MTA and its predecessors did not comply with the recommendations to provide adequate bus service.

The Support

Even with this overwhelming body of evidence, the MTA settlement might not have occurred without the support of an unusually broad coalition of civil rights advocates, environmentalists, libertarians, grassroots community organizers, and transportation experts from across the political spectrum. The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., served as lead counsel in the case. Environmental Defense advised the plaintiffs and the class on transportation, economics and equity issues. Institutional plaintiffs included the Labor/Community Strategy Center, the Bus Riders Union, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates. The settlement was supported by Republican Mayor Richard Riordan, the libertarian Reason Foundation, transportation experts from UCLA, and free-market economists and efficiency advocates from the University of Southern California. It was settled through mediation before Donald Bliss, a Republican and former Acting General Counsel to the Department of Transportation. Clearly, it would be hard to accuse such diverse interests of sharing an ideological or ethnic bias in the transportation dispute. Their historic victory highlights the need for broad-based coalitions to build healthy communities and to advance race relations.

The Settlement 

The settlement proved to be not only the most equitable solution to transportation problems in L.A., but the most efficient and environmentally sound. The settlement improved equity and mobility, reduced pollution and congestion, improved the bus system and blocked the MTA's runaway plans for an exorbitantly expensive and inefficient rail system in Los Angeles County. MTA even suspended its rail program in the wake of the settlement. Today, the most significant step towards a more just and efficient transportation system in Los Angeles County lies in MTA's successful implementation of the Consent Decree. 

Recommendations for Greater Transportation Equity

Even greater transportation progress can be achieved by extending the valuable precedent of the MTA case through non-litigation forms of advocacy. Environmental Defense is doing just that, working with policy makers and the United States Department of Transportation to improve transportation options for all low-income communities and communities of color. We offer the following proposals to realize this goal.

Improve Equity through Better Transportation Planning. As a result of the Consent Decree, MTA's long-range plans, major capital projects, and annual budgets now require a section addressing the needs of the transit-dependent. Agencies around the nation should follow this model and demonstrate compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Agencies should create the data necessary to analyze the impact of transportation policies on low-income people of color. Plans should specifically analyze distribution of costs and benefits and the impact of various proposals on different communities. The information should be publicly available as part of the planning process, allowing communities to influence the impact of transportation policies on their lives.

Learn from the People. Policy makers should diversify the planning process by including representatives from community-based organizations, grassroots groups, environmental groups, civil rights advocates and environmental justice advocates. Policy makers should regularly reach out to low-income communities to learn their unique transportation needs.

The MTA Consent Decree requires that MTA work with representatives of the plaintiffs' class of bus riders to implement the Decree over the next 10 years. Other transportation agencies should use a similar approach. As demonstrated in the MTA settlement, broad-based coalitions are vital to the success of the planning process.

Examine the Impacts of "Welfare to Work." Policy makers need to examine the impact of welfare-to-work programs on transportation needs. Although two-thirds of all new jobs in the nation have sprouted in the suburbs, three-quarters of welfare recipients live in central cities or rural areas. The people in the inner cities and rural areas may need to reach the jobs in the suburbs, but only one in 20 welfare recipients nationwide owns a car. New workers will need to reach their jobs even if they live and work within the central city. The commuting dilemma, along with the creation of jobs, job training, and day care, is one of the most significant challenges of welfare reform.

Establish Equity in Transportation Contracts. Awarding contracts to disadvantaged firms as part of major transportation projects will benefit the communities affected by the projects. For example, in the behemoth Alameda Corridor transportation project in Los Angeles, contractors are required to train and hire workers from the Corridor's depressed and predominantly minority neighborhoods. Unemployment and underemployment in these communities is as high as 34%, compared to a 6% jobless rate for the rest of the county.

Improve Transportation Alternatives. Policy makers should move beyond improvements in traditional, fixed-route transit services, such as busing, and promote innovation in transit alternatives. Many people coming off welfare will land in jobs with graveyard or weekend shifts, times when traditional transit operates on a reduced schedule, and in locations beyond walking distance of transit. The intricacies of juggling child care with work make commuting all the more difficult. In L.A., public transit serves only a small percentage of daily commuters. Buses alone are not the answer. Other innovations are needed, such as tax-free mass transit benefits through employers. Shared-ride taxis, taxi vouchers, vans, and smart shuttle services can economically serve travel markets not well-suited to fixed- route transit. Guarded bicycle parking garages, other secure bike parking, and rental bikes at park-and-ride lots and major transit stops can expand transit access in suburban employment areas, particularly when an integrated network of bicycle-safe roads and pathways link transit stops to activity and job sites. Policy makers should investigate these alternatives and foster their implementation in regions around the country.

Establish Equitable Road Pricing. Road pricing can be an efficient means of reducing congestion and managing transportation demand. Congestion pricing, High-Occupancy-Toll (HOT) lanes, and other user-fee approaches can reduce reliance on single-occupant vehicles. The way revenue from road pricing programs is used, however, can be crucial in determining whether road pricing makes sense from both an equity and an efficiency standpoint. Road pricing revenues should be invested in better bus and transportation services to benefit low-income residents. Where new highway capacity in the region is justified, tolls are certainly a better means of financing this capacity than other alternatives, especially the sales tax.

Similarly, HOT lanes can benefit low-income people by encouraging carpooling - already a common practice among the working poor. A study in South Central Los Angeles found that a quarter of lower- income workers carpool, while one in five takes the bus. Much of the carpool planning focuses on the needs of white-collar commuters. Policy makers should also investigate ways to support carpooling and other unconventional and entrepreneurial services that meet the needs of low-income travelers.

Achieve Equity in Land Use Planning. Transportation policies, sprawl, and land use patterns are intimately related and must be addressed together. Land use and transportation strategies can reduce the number of trips and the number of miles that people travel in cars. By creating communities that are better suited to walking, biking, and transit, we can create healthier communities with more mobility, access to jobs, reduced congestion and cleaner air. Adequate transportation planning must address the dislocation of jobs and services away from low-income communities. As with all of these recommendations, individual strategies must be tailored in each city to meet community needs.

Conclusion

Transportation justice lies at the intersection of civil rights and environmental issues. While the environmental benefits of reduced congestion and the economic benefits of more efficient resource use are clear, transportation policy is crucial to the equitable integration of low-income communities and people of color into the "American Dream."

Our work is part of a continuing struggle to acheive equality in transportation that goes back for over one hundred years. In 1896 the United States Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld segregated railroad cars and legitimated the "separate but equal" treatment of whites and people of color. The Supreme Court overthrew that doctrine in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. The modern civil rights movement has roots in the Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., in the 1950's. John Lewis and the Freedom Riders desegregated interstate buses in the 1960's. Yet decades later, the L.A. experience demonstrates that transportation policy has nurtured an environment that is not only separate, but starkly unequal.

The L.A. experience provides valuable lessons for transforming transportation equity into a nationwide reality. At Environmental Defense we are helping to make this happen across the country.


Working with the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Garcia was one of the lead attorneys for plaintiffs and the class in the case against the MTA.

Robert Bullard & Glenn S. Johnson, eds., Just Transportation: Dismantling Race & Class Barriers to Mobility (1997).

Michael Cameron, Efficiency and Fairness on the Road: Strategies for Unsnarling Traffic in Southern California (Environmental Defense 1994).

Michael Cameron, "Transportation Efficiency and Equity in Southern California: Are they Compatible?", chapter in Bullard & Johnson, Just Transportation.

Robert Garcia, Riots & Rebellion: Civil Rights, Police Reform, and the Rodney King Beating (1997) (tracing developments in race relations between the riots and rebellion in Watts in 1965 and following the acquittals in the Rodney King beating trial in 1992)(available at www.ldfla.org/riots.html).

David Halberstam, The Children (1981).

Bill Lann Lee, "Civil Rights and Legal Remedies: A Plan of Action," chapter in Bullard & Johnson, Just Transportation.

Eric Mann, "Confronting Transit Racism in Los Angeles," chapter in Bullard & Johnson, Just Transportation.

Materials filed in Labor/Community Strategy Center v. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (available from Environmental Defense.

• Consent Decree (Oct. 29, 1996);
• Plaintiffs' Revised Statement of Contentions of Law and Fact.(a self-extracting 250-page WordPerfect document).

James Melvin Washington, editor,Martin Luther King, A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., 325-26 (1991).

Roger Waldinger & Mehdi Bozorgmehr, Ethnic Los Angeles (1997).