Jurisprudence, international law, and civil rights legislation are all in agreement that equal access to transportation is a “right”—but that means very little to the millions of low-income workers who must wait for a bus that might never come.

The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized a “fundamental” right to travel interstate according to Justice Stevens’ opinion in the case of Saenz v. Roe.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “[e]veryone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.”

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination by recipients of federal aid, including state departments of transportation and transit agencies. This discrimination may come in the form of segregation or denial of benefits or services to people because of race, color, or national origin.

Jobs, schools, affordable housing, health care services, and grocery stores can’t serve the people who can’t get there. Unfortunately for people of color, people with disabilities, and senior citizens, transit cuts are making transportation unaffordable, unreliable, or nonexistent.

The choices made by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Association have effectively barred millions of people from accessing its services. The L.A. system and other transit agencies should take note of how their decisions to cut services and increase fares impact and discriminate against minorities, people with disabilities, seniors and low-income workers.

It’s those low-wage transit dependent workers who bear the burden of these choices when they don’t get to work on time. And it’s students that have to figure out how to get to school when the public buses no longer serve their neighborhoods.

The average cost of owning a car is just shy of $9,500, which is almost half the poverty level for a family of four. The high costs of transportation force low-income families to limit spending for other basic needs. Americans in the lowest 20 percent income bracket—many of whom live in rural communities—spend roughly 42 percent of their annual income on transportation.

The racial component is also difficult to ignore when one looks at how transit cuts intersect with housing segregation. Racial minorities are four times more likely than whites to use public transit to get to work. One-third of low-income African-American households and one-fourth of low income Latino households do not even have access to an automobile.

There are countless obstacles that exclude transit riders from the fullness of what American life has to offer. City and state officials can stay cognizant of the needs of various populations by reforming the transportation planning process to be more outcome-oriented, using measures that promote equity, including affordability, mobility, job access, health, safety, and making investments in local communities. Transit officials should ensure fair and equitable access to their services and prioritize their most reliable customers – not take advantage of them.

Just last week, on July 25, 500 people rallied on the steps of LA City Hall calling "President Obama: Enforce, Restore, and Expand our Civil Rights." The LA Times headline was, "Bus Riders Union calls on Obama to restore service hours in L.A." In a protest outside City Hall, the group alleges that about a million hour in bus service cuts amount to civil rights violations by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Whoever frames the terms of the debate wins the battle and here in LA and nationally, the BRU's charges that the MTA practices "transit racism" have proven to be true. Now the challenge is how to remedy those civil rights violations.

In 1994, the Labor/Community Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union, represented by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, went into federal court asking the courts to overturn MTA fare increases from $1.10 to $1.25 and elimination of the monthly bus pass because they violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits government agencies that receive federal funds from using funds and services in a racially discriminatory manner. In a breakthrough development, Judge Terry Hatter issued a temporary restraining order and forced the MTA to stop the fare hike and restore the monthly bus pass. I worked on that case from day one. The Labor/Community Strategy Center v. Los Angeles MTA was a model of grassroots organizing, grassroots legal work, and alliance with a great civil rights law firm. The core of our case was that the MTA had established a separate and unequal transit system in LA, a new rail system with significantly higher white ridership (and higher income riders) and a bus system that was overcrowded, dilapidated, and unreliable. The subsidies on some rail lines were as high as $5 a passenger while the subsidies on some bus lines were 35 cents.

In court, we had to convince the judge that the MTA was inflicting irreparable harm on 500,000 low-income bus riders who were 22% Black, 50% Latino, and 8% Asian/Pacific Islander, that the MTA's actions were racially discriminatory, that the MTA had non-discriminatory alternatives (such as investing funds into the bus system) and that we had the probability of prevailing on the merits of the case. Faced with this strong proof of its racial discrimination, and strongly encouraged by the courts, the MTA entered into a ten-year Consent Decree with the Bus Riders Union. For the next ten years, the BRU and MTA worked through a Joint Working Group to negotiate the provisions of the decree (I served as the BRU co-chair of the JWG) and when we could not agree, we went back to a Special Master and the federal courts. Over those ten years, the MTA made a major investment in the bus system, bought 2500 new Compressed Natural Gas buses, created a $42 a month monthly bus pass, dramatically reduced overcrowding, and increased service by 1 million hours.

In 2006, the federal consent decree expired and like a southern school board freed of anti-segregation laws, the MTA went back to its retrograde ways. Despite assurances to the federal courts that they would maintain the bus system, they raised the bus fare from $52 to $75 and cut one million hours of service-essentially declaring war on the Consent Decree and their own riders. Meanwhile, the MTA raised millions in new revenues through a deceptive sales tax campaign that ended up excluding the bus system, and is building a "Subway to the Sea" that will involve billions of dollars while beginning to dismantle the bus system. Thus, the civil rights fight that never stopped is now on full speed to stop the runaway train and bring services back to the bus system.

Why would a Democratic MTA board led by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa allow those cuts to happen and perpetuate rail's raids of the bus system? Why did FTA chief Peter Rogoff come right to the edge of declaring the MTA in complete violation of Title VI and then at the last minute only ask them to fix their paperwork rather than fix the bus system? Those questions will be answered in future posts. But for now, President Obama has the power to convince the FTA to order the MTA to restore one million hours of bus service, to remedy existing Title VI violations, and to make a major stand for civil rights in his 2012 presidential campaign. Our campaign has gotten off to a great start. We will keep you posted as we expand this campaign and continue to work to restore one million hours and restore the federal government’s role in enforcing the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Eric Mann is the director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles and the author of Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer.

Laura Barrett is sure to know that Houston’s 1924 Anti-Jitney law was also intended to eliminate competition from African Americans. It was overturned in 1994 to allow Alfredo Santos to provide shared taxi services on fixed routes, with passengers paying one dollar each for each shared ride.

In the 1990s, an attempt was made by Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles to introduce similar shared taxi services along Wilshire Boulevard. They was turned down by the LA authorities who, I am convinced, had no wish to discriminate on grounds of race or nationality. But they did want to protect government transit monopolies, so they denied the immigrants’ request.

It is good to know that Laura, and Gamliel’s Transportation Equity Network, are fighting discrimination in the provision of public transportation. I assume that they are also fighting for the rights of all safe drivers to transport willing passengers in safe vehicles.

Such services are already provided in Atlantic City (legally) and in New York City (illegally). They increase both mobility and employment, especially in high-crime minority areas that licensed cabs are reluctant to enter.

The Bus Riders Union is a charter member of Gamaliel's Transportation Equity Network. We stood with the Bus Riders and their appeal to FTA and will continue to do so. We can't trade one form of transit for another. We need to increase access to transit for everyone, instead of picking light rail over buses - both are important and both are needed to create a truly integrated transit system that will improve LA's economy.

Is access to transit a civil right? The FTA seems to think so: On March 8 of 2011 Federal Transportation Administrator, Peter Rogoff wrote to the heads of major transit agencies reminding them of their obligation to ensure that service and fare changes don’t have a discriminatory impact on minorities or people of low income. Administrator Rogoff’s letter reminded the heads of major U.S. transit agencies that a budget crisis is no excuse for violating civil rights. In a time of economic crisis, it’s more important than ever to ensure that service and fare changes don’t put those most vulnerable among us at a disadvantage.

As the letter stated:

[C]ompliance with Title VI [of the 1964 Civil Rights Act] is especially important when launching service or fare changes that may be necessitated by financial difficulties. … Specifically, public transportation agencies serving large urbanized areas are required to conduct a service and fare equity analysis at the planning and programming stages to determine whether service and/or fare changes have a discriminatory impact.

People of color are up to six times more likely to depend on public transportation than white Americans. As a result, the epidemic of service cuts and fare hikes around the country are having a devastating impact on the ability of millions of Americans to access jobs, education, health care, and opportunity. America was founded on the promise of equal opportunity for all. If the current budget slashing is having a discriminatory impact on people of color, we are betraying that ideal. We can and must do better, because we’re all in this together.

In LA that means that the FTA must protect the civil rights of bus riders as vigorously as possible: it's the right thing to do and their own regulations demand it.

I am no lawyer, but believe that the "unalienable Rights" of people to the "Pursuit of Happiness" include the right to travel, and that governments in the US have no right (subject possibly to safety concerns) to restrict transport services that willing sellers offer to willing buyers.

However, a right to travel does not necessarily give a right to travel at the expense of others.

In phrasing this question, Fawn may have been thinking of the 1994 case of Santos v. City of Houston, in which the courts overturned Houston's 1924 Anti-Jitney law enacted to protect streetcar companies from competition. Is this not similar to the issue now raised in Los Angeles, regarding bus services being suppressed to protect rail services?

I do not know about "rights [of] city and state governments ... with regard to their transportation systems", but suspect that the best way for "transportation officials [to] balance the needs of everyone while staying within their budgets" would be for governments to stay out of public transportation, and let services be supplied by private providers, as are food, water, and other essentials.

If low-income people need help with transportation, they can be issued travel vouchers (equivalent to food stamps) to help them choose commercially provided travel modes convenient to them.