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ChineseDisappointing turnout at fare forums
[tags]lacmta, metro, fare hikes, meetings[/tags]
12 speakers in the San Fernando Valley. 3 at Gateway (in a huge room the size of an aircraft hangar, with over 100 chairs set up, yet hardly anyone came). 7 at Westside/Central Sector. Nobody seems to want to express an opinion one way or the other.
What is going on here? Are people informed of the forums? (Some people found out about it through those small “Metro News” ads that Community Relations runs for each sector, but they are easy to miss unless you are looking for them.) No notice on the buses about them (or any hearing, for that matter). Do people not care? The BRU did not show up at Gateway or the Westside, so do they care, or are they just focusing their energies on May 24?
It is notable that they have produced items in multiple languages per the FTA regulations (which I went on at length a while back), and they had a stack of all of these at the Gateway Sector meeting that I went to (none at Westside, though). They are putting more information on the website (though not nearly as much as I would like), and they did more public meetings aside from that Thursday morning. Yet the public is not taking advantage of that. This is not a good sign.
Discussion
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…or perhaps it’s because, if I’m not mistaken, most of these “forums” are held IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY, when most people - including, I’d bet, most MTA customers - are at work. (I personally believe that’s on purpose, too.)
Yeah, but the BRU has paid shills that could show up during the middle of the day if they wanted to. Apparently they didn’t want to.
too bad MetroRiderLA doesn’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay people to skip work and go to meetings. come on fredcamino, time to start being a hypocrite so we can get some real cashola.
Actually, these forums are held during the evening ( http://www.mta.net/news_info/press/metro_076.htm ) and so they aren’t in the middle of the day.
I have seen BRU reps (you go to these things enough times and you recognize everyone) at Westside and San Gabriel Valley, but the normal Westside woman in the yellow shirt wasn’t there. My understanding is they are doing more organizing to pack the May 24 meeting. Unfortunately I think that the May 24 meeting will be a farce and be completely unproductive for any rational discussion of the issue. When you have the BRU scaring folks up into a frenzy, kids that have just walked out in school, and Board members being put under the microscope, insiders have predicted a bunch of motions being tossed around and some random number that is higher than today but less than the $120 monthly pass passing the Board.
Well these things have been advertised fairly well, the fare hike is certainly no secret… it’s been getting a healthy amount of press thanks to the BRU… maybe people just don’t care that much? Maybe people agree with the hikes? More likely, people don’t want to deal with traffic to get to the damn things.
I think Metro should set up a more robust web forum for comments and discussions about the fare hikes. I mean, c’mon, it’s the 90’s!
There are many concepts that cause me to wonder. On all the information about the fare adjustments, there is a place to write Metro. The whole point of a hearing is to gather public comment.
That can be done in person, by email or by letter. Not everyone can make some specific meeting to comment, but most everybody can write. But in the BRU mind(less) thinking, all must go before a body to comment.
The fact that there were other forums doesn’t seem to matter to much of the public, except those who are organized by the BRU.
At the Van Nuys hearing, the Sector Governance Council let everyone who wanted to actually speak an additional one or two more times, as there were so few up to talk.
Fare increases are not a bad thing, they just need to be every six or twelve months and then no one will care anymore. That is what happened when postage stamps first started to increase. The press and fanfare was huge. Now, the latest rate increase is a yawn. Gas above $3 a gallon again this year…again people are paying or moving to transit.
Even at the Metrolink hearing, I was the only speaker present to talk about that fare adjustment.
It is really only the BRU that wants to make this an issue that otherwise would be a yawn in this town.
Yes, there are 13 folks taking a vote to increase the prices. But all this public discussion just to say mostly NO. Most of the comments are usually so far off topic, it just consumes a huge amount of time and is not an actual vote, but a show.
Written comments received in advance are being read daily, every one of them, and considered by a team of executive staff at Metro. Issues raised are being researched and **rational** proposals for a new fare structure are run through financial models and seriously analyzed. If the BRU was interested in the long term health of the organization and a system that serves everyone equally, they would be doing the same. Throwing a public tantrum and big fat parties at the Biltmore is counter productive. While they accuse Metro of having a foregone conclusion on fares, they are working on creating their own foregone conclusion for the public hearing. Anyone who wants to see their communications style in advance can check out YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W4DL_Cgs-4 Does that look productive to you? Too bad the yellow shirts aren’t attending the Exxon, Chevron, and British Petroleum board meetings.