Few Bus Riders Penetrate Harbor Freeway Sound Barrier

Most of the eight stations are 30 feet from freeway traffic, with the rush of nearby cars creating a head-splitting roar. Plumes of vehicle exhaust choke the lungs and sting the eyes. Because there are usually few riders and rarely any police in sight, the stations appear isolated and dangerous. Vagrants find them a good place to camp out.

Caltrans promised the bus and freeway stations would relieve congestion with as many as 74,000 boardings a day -- the equivalent of about 37,000 round-trip riders.

But eight years after the stations opened, the buses tally about 3,000 boardings a day, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. By contrast, dozens of bus corridors in Los Angeles register more than 10,000 boardings each. A single MTA bus route on Wilshire Boulevard has nearly 50,000 boardings a day

"You don't want to be here for more than five minutes," said Antonio Rodriguez as he waited alone at the Carson Street station. "Anything more and your head hurts

The Carson Street station has an average of 20 people a day boarding northbound MTA buses, statistics from the transit agency show; three people a day get on southbound buses.

Caltrans built the freeway stations as a key component of the $500-million Harbor Transitway, which was mostly completed in 1996. In addition to building the bus stations, the project widened the Harbor Freeway and added carpool and bus lanes that use a three-mile stretch of elevated roadway south of downtown.

But so far, said Jim de la Loza, the MTA's planning director, the bus system is not faring well.

Like other officials at the MTA, which operates most bus service on the transitway, De la Loza was quick to pass blame. "That was a Caltrans project," he said. The statewide transportation agency designed and built the transitway with little coordination with the MTA and its predecessor, the Southern California Rapid Transit District.

Doug Failing, the Los Angeles-area regional director for Caltrans, said his agency did not control bus planning and operation on the transitway. In defense of his agency, Failing said there aren't enough buses on the transitway and few convenient bus connections.