Bus Routes

Re "Bus Ridership Low, Defying State Trend," April 24: What a surprise; bus ridership has fallen this year. At least bus routes can be adjusted where necessary to relieve this problem. Think of what low ridership could mean for the CenterLine proposal. And that could never be relieved with route adjustment. We would forever have large, extremely expensive cement monuments to OCTA's lack of understanding of the fact that the public needs transportation relief. Other monuments? Look at the extremely expensive fly-overs for the scantly used carpool lanes.

Seeking to improve its service, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will change about 100 of its bus routes today. The MTA will eliminate some routes it says are duplicated by service provided by local transit agencies, such as those in Santa Monica and Long Beach. Some other routes will be rerouted to feed passengers into the rail system. The MTA will also add two Metro Rapid bus lines: along Florence Avenue and Van Nuys Boulevard.

Orange County bus ridership has increased at a rapid pace over the last year, a sign that the furor over fare increases and radically altered routes may have subsided. After suffering declining ridership in 2000, the number of passengers using Orange County's bus system grew by 10% last year--the sharpest increase of any major metropolitan area in the nation, according to the American Public Transit Assn.

A sweeping overhaul of Orange County bus routes that was intended to speed service and boost ridership may, in fact, discourage people from riding on public buses, critics and transportation officials said Monday. Seven months after the Orange County Transportation Authority replaced its network of circuitous bus routes with a straight, grid-like system, agency officials announced they are investigating whether overall ridership is shrinking because of it.

The city will spend $12,000 to survey residents on city services, City Manager Lloyd de Llamas said. A proposed paramedic service tax and the establishment of better bus routes will be among the concerns of the survey. Llamas said the city has done similar surveys in the past, through the city newsletter, but generally received responses from only a small percentage of its readers.

Los Angeles transit officials, rethinking the most basic delivery of the county's bus service, have quietly begun to develop a plan to replace a decades-old patchwork of bus routes with a new "hub and spoke" route system. The idea, which is in such an early stage that few within the Metropolitan Transportation Authority know about it, is seen as a way to attract new riders and save money, said John Catoe, the MTA deputy chief executive who is spearheading the plan.

Orwell would love it. Sarah Catz, the "public member" of the Orange County Transportation Authority, is actually chosen by the elected board members, and as such is the only voting member not accountable to the public. Her Op-Ed piece ("Transit Center Is a Win-Win Project for the Public and Disney," July 31), which defends their attempt to spend our gas taxes on the Disney garage, seems a bit late. The OCTA did not mention the garage last November when they approved the I-405/SR-55 interchange project without comment.

The Monterey Park City Council has voted to establish bus service along five routes in the city and ordered a study on whether the city should operate the buses or hire a contractor. City Manager Lloyd de Llamas said the bus system could be in operation by fall. Still uncertain is whether riders will be charged. The city Ad Hoc Transportation Committee has recommended that the service be free; Dave Consulting Inc.

The City Council has voted to support a nearly 10-year-old effort by Capistrano Beach residents to reroute out of their neighborhood three bus lines they consider noisy and underused. The council voted unanimously last week to ask the Orange County Transportation Agency to eliminate portions of bus routes 1, 85 and 91 that run from Doheny Park Road through Capistrano Beach to the K mart Plaza on Camino de Estrella in San Clemente.