Since 2009, Metro has spent $2 billion on eight miles of rail, including the Expo Line and an extension of the east-county Gold Line, estimated to carry about 39,000 people per day (Cavanaugh, 2012). At least $11 billion of rail construction is still in progress, and this estimate will likely increase due to extra construction costs and lawsuits from homeowners and businesses (Wilson, 2012). Furthermore, “…building the Eastside Extension’s nine stations and seven miles of track took five years and cost $900 million, and it has yet to come anywhere near its projected ridership of 13,000 people a day” (Grescoe, 2012, p. 53). However, Metro spokesman Rick Jager believes that this will ultimately save the county $50 million per year (Wilson, 2012). The MTA is accused of "simultaneously increasing operating costs, reducing operating revenue, cutting service for working-class and poor customers, and dismantling a functioning mass transit system, all in the service of a fantasy that was pushed on an unwilling L.A. by wealthy liberals" (Cavanaugh, 2012).

In order to fund rail construction, the MTA was forced to reduce bus service, cutting bus lines by 4 percent in 2010 and 12 percent in 2011 (Cavanaugh, 2012). Bus service was reduced, despite the fact that four times as many Angelenos use the bus compared to the train, or 91% of all transit riders (Cavanaugh, 2012, Lopez, 1998). According to Cavanaugh (2012), "In 2009 MTA buses carried about 1.2 million riders a day. Multiplying that by 16 percent, we can estimate more than 180,000 people had their service canceled while fewer than 40,000 had service introduced." The result of reducing the bus service led to a five percent decrease in people using public transportation overall in Los Angeles since 2009. Cavanaugh (2012) believes that this is part of a longer trend, stating: "Since the MTA began rail construction in 1985', more than 80 miles of railroads have been built, but mass transit ridership as a percentage of county population is lower than it was in 1985." Over the past four years, Metro has eliminated 16 percent of bus lines, or 1 million hours in transport time, and “...for daily commuters traversing the county's 4,000 square miles -- mostly low-income, mostly minority workers who rely on a complex web of bus routes to get from, say, their homes in South L.A. to the wealthy Westside -- Metro's public transportation system is a rapidly darkening nightmare" (Wilson, 2012). The bus system is now so neglected that "Decrepit buses break down, air conditioners don't work and drivers blow past waiting passengers when they can't squeeze another one aboard” (Lopez, 1998). Furthermore, Rapid Transit buses frequently get stuck in traffic, and the rail network does not go near wealthy westside neighborhoods, “so a domestic worker from East L.A. who cleans house in Beverly Hills faces a two-hour ride to work by bus, light rail, subway, and then bus again. When using public transport means doubling your travel time and suffering through interminable transfers, only the desperate will ride it” (Grescoe, 2012, p. 63). This system is obviously in need of drastic improvement. 

In 2012, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials were ordered by the Federal Transit Administration chief Peter Rogoff to "review whether cutting hundreds of thousands of hours in bus service over the last few years was unjust to riders" (Bloomekatz, 2012). Metro was accused of not conducting proper analyses before implementing service changes, and the changes that were made were not compliant with FTA requirements, or civil rights laws, possibly leading to future losses in federal funding of public transportation. Despite the newly built subways and light-rail trains, "...some transportation experts say the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's $8-billion effort — less operating costs — has done little to reduce traffic congestion or increase the use of mass transit much beyond the level in 1985, when planning for the Metro Blue Line began” (Bloomekatz, 2012). From 1986 to 2006, there has been a decrease in at least 1.5 billion bus passengers (Bloomekatz, 2012). Furthermore, as the amount of passengers on buses has decreased, the population in Los Angeles County has increased by 20 percent since 1985. Congestion in Los Angeles continues to increase as well, despite the money spent on rail. Additionally, "Studies by the Texas Transportation Institute show that the time motorists spend in traffic has increased on average from 44 hours a year in 1982 to 70 hours in 2007. That has maintained the longstanding reputation of Los Angeles and Orange counties as the most congested in the nation" (Bloomekatz, 2012).