How to pay for transit services

Re “MTA approves steep hikes for bus, rail fares,” May 25

The argument that bus fares should be increased boils down to the assertion that bus riders should fund bus services.

This ignores the fact that buses are public goods. Buses provide a valuable service to riders, but also to everyone else in Los Angeles. Buses take workers to employment and customers to shops, benefiting both workers and employers, customers and stores.

When police or firefighters require additional funds, we do not impose surcharges on store owners or homeowners. If the Metropolitan Transportation Authority requires additional funds, why then should we impose fare increases on bus riders? Increasing bus fares probably will be counterproductive, decreasing ridership -- and perhaps even revenue -- and increasing pollution and congestion.

If the MTA is losing money, it should receive greater tax subsidies. I am sure any careful cost-benefit analysis would show that the social value of a bus trip greatly exceeds its cost.

WILLIAM ZAME

Los Angeles

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MTA Chief Executive Roger Snoble and L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are both wrong.

If the MTA enforced the payment of fares on the Metro rail lines, a fare hike probably would be unnecessary. The “honor system” doesn’t work -- a sad fact that almost every other major city already acknowledges in its subway stations.

BOB HUNKA

Los Angeles

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Re “A middle road,” editorial, May 24

Yes, Villaraigosa and the Bus Riders Union are being “impractical.” But, as a former L.A. resident now living in Chicago -- where there’s much more rail and the rates have been for a long while what the MTA now proposes -- I’m not sure how the MTA’s rail and fare plans are “impractical” except politically. The issue isn’t “heart” if the alternative is decreasing service; it’s leadership based on foresight, which only the MTA is showing.

I’ll be contemplating this as I negotiate the massively crowded and subsidized freeways on business in Los Angeles soon, and wonder about the negative effects on productivity and air quality.

Hey, did the transit mess and general sprawl negatively affect that Olympics bid?

KEVIN COLLINS

Chicago

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Re “Everyone loses with MTA’s rate decision,” column, May 25

Everyone seems to think that the answer to our transportation problems is more money. The MTA says it needs more money to ease our traffic problems, so it must be so.

What about the 2-cent sales tax increases that voters approved in 1980 and 1990, specifically for transportation? What has the MTA been doing with that money? Well, it built a beautiful building years ago; it has lots of staff running around; it studies, discusses and develops lots of plans. Has any of this alleviated traffic? Not really.

I don’t mind paying for something received. But I foresee the same situation years from now. Traffic will still be a problem and the MTA will still blame it on a lack of money.

Here’s a novel idea: Let’s use the money that we have more efficiently.

MARLENE BRONSON

La Jolla