This is a step toward the implementation of a countywide network of bus-only lanes on all major bus-transit corridors in Los Angeles County. A countywide bus-only lane network would reduce the harmful emissions of auto tailpipe toxins that attack our children's health and damage the environment. As BRU Planning Committee member Jorge Alberto says, "This decision represents a challenge to the auto industry, but equally as important, it's an improvement in the mobility and public health for the transit-dependent, primarily immigrant and working class of color." We also believe dramatic changes in transit policy are necessary to reduce greenhouse gases in order to begin to address our responsibility to the Third World and communities most devastated by global warming.

Bus-only lanes are a way to utilize the existing infrastructure -- roads and freeways -- and use it more efficiently. By taking one existing lane of mixed-flow traffic (cars, buses, etc.) and using it exclusively for buses, we can triple or quadruple the lane's utility, improve the speed of the buses, and help make public transportation an alternative to the auto.