In the face of unprecedented wildfires fueled by powerful Santa Ana winds, LA Metro is taking decisive action to support our community. The transit agency has implemented critical service changes and suspended fare collection through the weekend as part of their commitment to public safety and recovery efforts.

What’s Happening?

As reported by KTLA, Metro Board Chair Janice Hahn announced the fare suspension through Friday, which has now been extended into the weekend. The decision was made due to technical difficulties with TAP machines caused by ongoing power issues, compounded by the dire needs of those affected by the wildfires scarring parts of Los Angeles County. Officials have opened fare gates at all rail stations, allowing riders to travel without the worry of fare costs during this emergency phase. Similarly, bus operators are not collecting fares, ensuring that transportation is accessible for everyone during this challenging time.

Service Adjustments and Repair Efforts

Along with fare suspensions, LA Metro is mobilizing resources to make essential repairs across the transit system, particularly focusing on areas severely affected by the fires. With over 1,000 feet of overhead wire needing urgent attention between South Pasadena and Highland Park, the agency is tapping into bus shuttles to supplement train services where necessary.

Some specific interruptions include:

• A Line: Bus shuttles are replacing train service between Southwest Museum and Fillmore stations due to damaged wires.
• Line 134: This service has been canceled entirely due to fires near the Palisades area.
• Lines 180 and 217: These buses are on detour, avoiding downed power lines and using alternate routes.
• Lines 660 and 662: Service is halted north of Washington in Pasadena and Altadena because of wildfire activities.
• Line 296: Buses will reroute to the 5 Freeway between Los Feliz Blvd. and Western Ave.
• Line 602: Another cancellation due to the Palisades area fires.

Metro is diligently working to clear debris and address the challenges posed by wildfires, indicating that repairs are expected to continue through the weekend.

Community Support and Emergency Response

Metro’s commitment extends beyond maintaining transit services. The agency has offered assistance during emergency situations, including providing buses to the LAPD for evacuating residents during the Sunset Fire in the Hollywood Hills. Chair Hahn has expressed heartfelt gratitude to first responders, acknowledging their relentless efforts to keep our community safe.

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Staying Informed

For those relying on LA Metro services during these disruptions, it’s essential to stay updated. Riders are encouraged to follow LA Metro’s social media channels or check the Metro Alerts page for the latest information on service changes and emergency updates.

In this time of uncertainty and recovery, LA Metro is demonstrating remarkable adaptability and a commitment to public safety. Their cooperation with emergency services and proactive measures ensures that our community receives the support it needs. Thank you to all the first responders and LA Metro staff working tirelessly behind the scenes—your efforts are deeply appreciated!

Let’s all stay safe, support one another, and navigate through these tough times together.

Read the KTLA article:

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/la-metro-adjusts-service-and-suspends-fares-due-to-fire-recovery-and-wind-repairs

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Colleen E. Reid, University of Colorado Boulder

When wildfires spread into neighborhoods, they burn all kinds of materials found in cars and houses and everything around them – electronics, paint, plastics, furniture.

Research shows that the mix of chemicals released when human-made materials like these burn is different from what is emitted during a vegetation fire and is potentially more toxic. The smoke and ash can blow under doors and around windows in nearby homes, bringing in chemicals that are absorbed into furniture, walls and other indoor surfaces and continue off-gassing for weeks to months.

As people return to smoke-damaged homes after a wildfire, there are several steps they can take to protect their health before starting to clean.

Elevated levels of metals and VOCs

In 2021, after the Marshall Fire swept through neighborhoods near Boulder, Colorado, my colleagues and I at Colorado universities and labs heard from many residents who were worried about the ash and lingering smells inside their homes that had otherwise survived the flames.

In homes that my colleagues were able to quickly test, they found elevated levels of metals and PAHs – polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons – in the ash. We also found elevated VOCs – volatile organic compounds – in airborne samples. Some VOCs, such as dioxins, benzene, formaldehyde and PAHs, can be toxic to humans. Benzene is a known carcinogen.

At the time, we could find no information about physical health implications for people who have returned to smoke-damaged homes after a wildfire. So, to look for patterns, we surveyed residents affected by the fire six months, one year and two years after the fire.

Even six months after the fire, we found that many people were reporting symptoms that aligned with health risks related to smoke and ash from fires.

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More than half (55%) reported that they were experiencing at least one symptom six months after the blaze that they attributed to the Marshall Fire. The most common symptoms reported were itchy or watery eyes (33%), headache (30%), dry cough (27%), sneezing (26%) and sore throat (23%).

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All of these symptoms, as well as having a strange taste in one’s mouth, were associated with people reporting that their home smelled differently when they returned to it one week after the fire.

Many survey respondents said that the smells decreased over time. Most attributed the improvement in smell to the passage of time, cleaning surfaces and air ducts, replacing furnace filters, and removing carpet, textiles and furniture from the home. Despite this, many still had symptoms.

We also found that living near a large number of burned structures was associated with these health symptoms. We found that for every 10 additional destroyed buildings within 820 feet (250 meters) of a person’s home, there was an associated 21% increase in headaches and a 26% increase in having a strange taste in their mouth.

These symptoms align with what could be expected from exposure to the chemicals that we found in the ash and measured in the air inside the few smoke-damaged homes that we were able to study in depth.

Lingering symptoms and questions

There are a still a lot of unanswered questions about the health risks from smoke- and ash-damaged homes.

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For example, we don’t yet know what long-term health implications might look like for people living with lingering gases from wildfire smoke and ash in a home. We found a significant decline in the number of people reporting symptoms one year after the fire. However, 33% percent of the people whose homes were affected and responded to a later survey still reported at least one symptom that they attributed to the fire. About the same percentage also reported at least one symptom two years after the fire.

We also could not measure the level of VOCs or metals that each person was exposed to. But we do think that reports of a change in the smell of a person’s home one week after the fire demonstrates the likely presence of VOCs in the home. That likely has health implications for people whose homes are exposed to smoke or ash from a wildfire.

Tips to protect yourself after wildfires

Wildfires are increasingly burning homes and other structures as more people move into the wildland-urban interface, temperatures rise and fire seasons lengthen.

If your home survives a wildfire nearby, here are some of the steps to think about before starting to clean:

• When you’re ready to clean your home, start by protecting yourself. Wear at least an N95 (or KN95) mask and gloves, goggles and clothing that covers your skin. Cleaning can send some of those gases and ash into the air again.
• Keep people with heart or lung diseases, older adults, pregnant women, children and pets away from cleanup activities.
• Vacuum floors, drapes and furniture. A recent scientific study documents how cleaning all surfaces within a home can reduce reservoirs of VOCs and lower indoor air concentrations of VOCs. Once the air outside has cleared, open windows to let clean air in.
• Avoid harsh chemical cleaners because they can react with the chemicals in the ash.
• Clean your HVAC filter and ducts to avoid spreading ash further, and change filters monthly until the smell is gone. Portable air cleaners with carbon filters can help remove VOCs and particles.
• If your car smells of smoke, consider changing the cabin air filter.

This is an update to an article first published Dec. 23, 2024.

Colleen E. Reid, Associate Professor of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Beverly Moran, Vanderbilt University

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a set of tax cuts Donald Trump signed into law during his first term as president, will expire on Dec. 31, 2024. As Trump and Republicans prepare to negotiate new tax cuts in 2025, it’s worth gleaning lessons from the president-elect’s first set of cuts.

The 2017 cuts were the most extensive revision to the Internal Revenue Code since the Ronald Reagan administration. The changes it imposed range from the tax that corporations pay on their foreign income to limits on the deductions individuals can take for their state and local tax payments.

Trump promised middle-class benefits at the time, but in practice more than 80% of the cuts went to corporations, tax partnerships and high-net-worth individuals. The cost to the U.S. deficit was huge − a total increase of US$1.9 trillion from 2018 to 2028, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. The tax advantage to the middle class was small.

Advantages for Black Americans were smaller still. As a scholar of race and U.S. income taxation, I have analyzed the impact of Trump’s tax cuts. I found that the law has disadvantaged middle-income, low-income and Black taxpayers in several ways.

Cuts worsened disparities

These results are not new. They were present nearly 30 years ago when my colleague William Whitford and I used U.S. Census Bureau data to show that Black taxpayers paid more federal taxes than white taxpayers with the same income. In large part that’s because the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and structural racism keeps Black people from owning homes.

The federal income tax is full of advantages for home ownership that many Black taxpayers are unable to reach. These benefits include the ability to deduct home mortgage interest and local property taxes, and the right to avoid taxes on up to $500,000 of profit on the sale of a home.

It’s harder for middle-class Black people to get a mortgage than it is for low-income white people. This is true even when Black Americans with high credit scores are compared with white Americans with low credit scores.

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When Black people do get mortgages, they are charged higher rates than their white counterparts.

Trump did not create these problems. But instead of closing these income and race disparities, his 2017 tax cuts made them worse.

Black taxpayers paid higher taxes than white taxpayers who matched them in income, employment, marriage and other significant factors.

Broken promises, broken trust

Fairness is an article of faith in American tax policy. A fair tax structure means that those earning similar incomes should pay similar taxes and stipulates that taxes should not increase income or wealth disparities.

Trump’s tax cuts contradict both principles.

Proponents of Trump’s cuts argued the corporate rate cut would trickle down to all Americans. This is a foundational belief of “supply side” economics, a philosophy that President Ronald Reagan made popular in the 1980s.

From the Reagan administration on, every tax cut for the rich has skewed to the wealthy.

Just like prior “trickle down” plans, Trump’s corporate tax cuts did not produce higher wages or increased household income. Instead, corporations used their extra cash to pay dividends to their shareholders and bonuses to their executives.

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Over that same period, the bottom 90% of wage earners saw no gains in their real wages. Meanwhile, the AFL-CIO, a labor group, estimates that 51% of the corporate tax cuts went to business owners and 10% went to the top five highest-paid senior executives in each company. Fully 38% went to the top 10% of wage earners.

In other words, the income gap between wealthy Americans and everyone else has gotten much wider under Trump’s tax regime.

Stock market inequality

Trump’s tax cuts also increased income and wealth disparities by race because those corporate tax savings have gone primarily to wealthy shareholders rather than spreading throughout the population.

The reasons are simple. In the U.S., shareholders are mostly corporations, pension funds and wealthy individuals. And wealthy people in the U.S. are almost invariably white.

Sixty-six percent of white families own stocks, while less than 40% of Black families and less than 30% of Hispanic families do. Even when comparing Black and white families with the same income, the race gap in stock ownership remains.

These disparities stem from the same historical disadvantages that result in lower Black homeownership rates. Until the Civil War, virtually no Black person could own property or enter into a contract. After the Civil War, Black codes – laws that specifically controlled and oppressed Black people – forced free Black Americans to work as farmers or servants.

State prohibitions on Black people owning property, and public and private theft of Black-owned land, kept Black Americans from accumulating wealth.

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Health care hit

That said, the Trump tax cuts hurt low-income taxpayers of all races.

One way they did so was by abolishing the individual mandate requiring all Americans to have basic health insurance. The Affordable Care Act, passed under President Barack Obama, launched new, government-subsidized health plans and penalized people for not having health insurance.

Department of the Treasury data shows almost 50 million Americans were covered by the Affordable Care Act since 2014. After the individual mandate was revoked, between 3 million and 13 million fewer people purchased health insurance in 2020.

Ending the mandate triggered a large drop in health insurance coverage, and research shows it was primarily lower-income people who stopped buying subsidized insurance from the Obamacare exchanges. These are the same people who are the most vulnerable to financial disaster from unpaid medical bills.

Going without insurance hurt all low-income Americans. But studies suggest the drop in Black Americans’ coverage under Trump’s plan outpaced that of white Americans. The rate of uninsured Black Americans rose from 10.7% in 2016 to 11.5% in 2018, following the mandate’s repeal.

The consumer price index conundrum

The Trump tax cuts also altered how the Internal Revenue Service calculates inflation adjustments for over 60 different provisions. These include the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit – both of which provide cash to low-wage workers – and the wages that must pay Social Security taxes.

Previously, the IRS used the consumer price index for urban consumers, which tracks rising prices by comparing the cost of the same goods as they rise or fall, to calculate inflation. The government then used that inflation number to adjust Social Security payments and earned income tax credit eligibility. It used the same figure to set the amount of income that is taxed at a given rate.

The Trump tax cuts ordered the IRS to calculate inflation adjustments using the chained consumer price index for urban consumers instead.

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The difference between these two indexes is that the second one assumes people substitute cheaper goods as prices rise. For example, the chained consumer price index assumes shoppers will buy pork instead of beef if beef prices go up, easing the impact of inflation on a family’s overall grocery prices.

The IRS makes smaller inflation adjustments based on that assumption. But low-income neighborhoods have less access to the kind of budget-friendly options envisioned by the chained consumer price index.

And since even middle-class Black people are more likely than poor white people to live in low-income neighborhoods, Black taxpayers have been hit harder by rising prices.

What cost $1 in 2018 now costs $1.26. That’s a painful hike that Black families are less able to avoid.

The imminent expiration of the Trump tax cuts gives the upcoming GOP-led Congress the opportunity to undertake a thorough reevaluation of their effects. By prioritizing policies that address the well-known disparities exacerbated by these recent tax changes, lawmakers can work toward a fairer tax system that helps all Americans.

Beverly Moran, Professor Emerita of Law, Vanderbilt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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