Crossroad blues: the MTA Consent Decree and just transportation

Abstract

This chapter describes how a team of civil rights attorneys working with grassroots activists filed and won the landmark environmental justice class action Labor/Community Strategy Center v. Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA). The plaintiffs alleged that MTA operated separate and unequal bus and rail systems that discriminated against bus riders with disproportionately low-income people of color. The parties settled the case in 1996 through a court-ordered Consent Decree in which MTA agreed to make investments in the bus system that totaled over $2 billion, making it the largest civil rights settlement ever. The MTA agreed to improve transportation for all of the people of Los Angeles by reducing overcrowding on buses, lowering transit fares, and enhancing county-wide mobility. Despite the fact that the MTA agreed to the terms of the Consent Decree, it has resisted bus service improvements for the seven-plus years the decree has been in force. MTA has taken its arguments to set aside the Consent Decree all the way to the US Supreme Court – and lost every time. Ultimately, the MTA case was resolved through mediation and an out of court settlement, not a trial. The MTA case illustrates what can be accomplished under federal civil rights law in the US when a community organizes to protect against environmental injustices. This is an important difference between the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), where no such legislation and litigation is available to populations that are discriminated against by transportation policies.