The Board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted Thursday to make sweeping cuts to bus service as part of the largest overhaul of the system in more than a decade.

Plans call for nine routes to be eliminated in June and 11 scaled back. The cuts will equal a 12% reduction in overall bus service over recent years. The cuts will increase the number of passengers on individual buses.

Protesters outside Metro offices and inside the boardroom Thursday decried the cuts as an assault on those with low incomes and said people of color will be disproportionately affected by the reduction in services.

Some have criticized Metro in recent years for embarking on an ambitious plan to expand its rail service without putting forth larger efforts for its bus service.

But Metro officials and other government leaders have consistently defended the expansion of rail service.

The reductions come five years after a federal judge ended a decadelong consent decree that gave a court-appointed special master oversight of how the agency managed its bus service.