Bus Riders Disrupt Panel’s Meeting

Angry bus riders disrupted the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board meeting Wednesday, singing “We Shall Overcome” to protest what they contend is the MTA’s delay in implementing court-ordered bus improvements.

The MTA board delayed a vote on buying 200 low-polluting buses to study how the purchase could affect the county’s rail construction plans.

Eric Mann, the leader of the Bus Riders Union, called the delay a “double-cross” and a “blatant violation” of the consent decree signed last year by the MTA and civil rights attorneys representing mostly minority and poor bus riders.

Mann accused Mayor Richard Riordan of not working hard enough to win passage of the bus purchase. “When he wanted to get rid of [former transit chief] Franklin White, he got rid of Franklin White.”

But Riordan not only pushed for a vote on the purchase of 200 buses--suffering a rare setback at the MTA--but pledged to support the purchase of 223 more buses later.

Riordan expressed his frustration at the delays, saying: “I feel like a juggler who just learned to juggle three balls and then is given two more balls.”

County Supervisor and MTA board member Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, in pushing for a delay, said: “The reason the feds give us so much trouble is that we don’t stick to a course.”

A mayoral aide said after the meeting that Riordan has demonstrated “a total commitment” to bus improvements and would continue to push for a “bus-friendly agenda” at the MTA.