Court Rules for East Bay Bus Riders: Discrimination Suit Against MTC To Move Forward

By Public Advocates

San Francisco, CA Dec. 21, 2005. Rejecting arguments by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), Judge Elizabeth Laporte of the U.S. District Court ruled today that a civil rights lawsuit by East Bay bus riders accusing MTC of racial discrimination in the allocation of Bay Area transit funds will proceed.

The class action lawsuit, filed April 19 on behalf of AC Transit bus riders of color, asserts that MTC discriminates against poor transit riders of color by maintaining “separate and unequal” transit systems: an expanding state-of-art rail system, Caltrain and BART, for disproportionately white and affluent passengers and a shrinking bus system, AC transit, for low-income people of color.

The Court’s ruling rebuffs MTC’s eight-month long legal campaign to deny East Bay Minority bus riders their day in court on technical grounds. MTC, the agency that allocates more than $1 billion a year in Bay Area public transit funds, did not dispute allegations that AC Transit riders receive a public subsidy of only $2.78 pre trip, while BART passengers receive more than double that subsidy ($6.14) and Caltrain passengers nearly five times more ($13.79). Instead MTC argued that the bus riders left stranded by its discriminatory under-funding of AC Tranist did not have “standing” to sue MTC in federal court.

This marked MTC’s second effort to have the case thrown out of court. In an unorthodox procedure, MTC in effect asked in the Court to decide disputed factual questions without a trial. The Court refused to circumvent proper procedure, requiring that factual disputes be resolved at trial, and only after MTC has provided the plaintiffs with all relevant information and documents in the process known as “discovery.”

Bus riders responded to the Court’s ruling with enthusiasm. “For years we have been stuck waiting at bus stops and coping with rising fares, crowded buses, and service cuts,” said lead plaintiff and AC Transit bus rider Sylvia Darensburg. “Now bus riders will get their day in court to demonstrate how MTC has neglected our basic transportation needs.”

“For eight month, MTC did everything in its power to dismiss bus riders’ civil rights grievances on technical grounds,” said Richard Marcantonio, a managing attorney at Public Advocates, Inc., who is representing the plaintiffs along with Bill Lann Lee of Lieff Cabraser Heiman & Bernstein, Communities for a Better Environment, and Altshuler, Berzon, Nussbaum, Rubin & Demain. “The Court’s order means that MTC’s discriminatory funding practices will be subject to public scrutiny. 

MTC’s unsuccessful efforts  to have the case dismissed on procedural grounds coincided with nationwide observances of the passing of Rosa Parks, whose refusal to submit to second-class treatment in public transportation service sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott 50 years ago this month. The ridership of the bus system Rosa Parks used in Montgomery, Alabama, was 75% African-American, while 80% of AC Transit bus riders are people of color.

Judge Laporte’s decision also coincided with rising public outrage over the longstanding inequities the lawsuit challenges. In an op-ed piece decrying MTC’s discriminatory funding in the San Francisco Chronicle last June, Rep. Barbara Lee asserted that, “fifty years after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, mass-transit bus service unfortunately remains a symbol of inequality in our society.”

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