By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

Maybe it's time O'ahu bus riders got a union of their own.

That's not some flippant remark tossed out in the heat of Honolulu's first bus strike in more than 30 years. Instead, it's a reflection on what's happening in a lot of other places across the country.

From New York to Los Angeles, mass transit riders are getting organized. They're standing up to local governments to protect the service they've come to depend on and they are fighting to keep fares low.

One of the oldest and best organized such groups is the Bus Riders Union in Los Angeles, where more than 3,000 members pay $10 to $50 a year to support the union's activities.

The BRU began in 1974 when a group of labor and community activists wanted to find out why bus service was being cut. When they got rebuffed by city officials, the group decided to organize, just as bus drivers had organized their own union to get better working conditions.

Since then, the Bus Riders Union has become an influential voice in public transit issues in Los Angeles, seeking to create express bus lanes on all of L.A.'s freeways and trying to get the cost of a monthly bus pass cut in half.

It also has been instrumental in a campaign to ensure that money for transit services is fairly distributed to protect riders in poor areas. Still, the group's biggest success, organizers say, simply is giving a voice to the city's transit users, who are often among its least powerful residents.

In New York, the Straphangers Campaign is a citizen group that advocates more service to ease crowding on New York's subways and buses. In San Francisco, the Bay Area Transit Information Project compiles and distributes information to the public on local transit systems. In Maryland, an advocacy group seeks to improve transit services for people with disabilities.

In Honolulu, though, no organization represents motorists or bus riders. When the state started its now infamous "van cam" traffic enforcement program in 2001, no group came to the forefront to protest. Instead, it was thousands of individuals making their voices known to lawmakers who ultimately killed the program. Imagine how the protest might have developed if drivers had their own well-financed union.

It's a little like that with the bus strike. When the city announced cutbacks in bus service earlier this year, there was no organized protest, only the cries of individual riders who would be affected.

Instead, the challenge to the cutbacks came from the Teamsters and Allied Workers Local 996 union, which represents city bus workers. Many drivers say their initial concerns were keeping the high level of service the bus system has established over the years to protect the riders and, of course, their jobs.

Now, whatever you think of who is right and who is wrong in the ongoing strike, there are concerns of what will happen when it is over. The public's perception about mass transit — its costs and benefits — are likely to be changed forever in Honolulu by the strike.

As a new debate forms, it would be nice to hear people step forward with the bus riders' needs foremost in their voices.

Reach Mike Leidemann at 525-5460 or mleidemann@honoluluadvertiser.com.