When San Fernando Valley residents and others expressed worries about the potential for accidents on the Orange Line, transit officials repeatedly assured them the busway would be safe -- and pointed to a similar transit system in Miami as evidence.
But the Miami busway had in fact been plagued with accidents when it first opened -- some similar to those the Orange Line has experienced since opening last week, according to records and interviews.
It was only after the Miami system reduced its bus speeds and made other safety improvements that accidents declined. Now, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has adopted one similar measure: slowing down Orange Line buses as they go through intersections.
On Thursday, Orange Line buses crawled through the route's 36 crossings at 10 mph -- a new MTA policy instituted after two accidents Wednesday resulted in 15 injuries. Before, the buses were allowed to travel 25 to 30 mph through crossings.
The Miami busway is an eight-mile route built on a former railway that parallels a highway and intersects streets. Between its February 1997 opening and November 2000, 67 crashes occurred on busway intersections, resulting in dozens of injuries and two deaths, according to a National Bus Rapid Transit Institute report.
The crashes so concerned Florida officials that they required the buses to slow down, first from a top speed of 45 mph through crossings to 15 mph, and finally to stopping outright at major intersections.
They also turned off the corridor's signal priority system, which meant the buses had to wait for red lights just like regular cross-traffic.
Since those measures were adopted, accidents along the Miami busway have dropped significantly, said Manuel Palmeiro, a spokesman for Miami-Dade Transit, which runs the service.
Still, a 2002 MTA environmental impact report for the Orange Line touted the Miami busway as "an example of safety performance." The report also said the Orange Line would actually be a better system, with "additional safety measures ... that are not present in the Miami project."
During the review process for the Orange Line, some concerned residents cited the accidents on the Miami busway. The MTA responded in a 2004 report, saying it had "taken every precaution to design the Orange Line in as safe a manner as members of the traffic engineering and civil engineering professions know how to do."
