This message was posted on the SO.CA.TA Members-Only Board
(by member Bart Reed), and echoed to the newsgroup
la.transportation as a public service.
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Los Angeles Daily News: Friday, December 19, 2003

OPINION: OpEd
Bus service is faster, but is it any better?

By Michael Barack

WITH great expectations and much advertising
hoopla, the downtown planners of the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority took successful Metro
Limited Bus Line 561 and turned it into Rapid
Line 761 late this June, but not without grave
consequences for its working poor ridership.

The basic promise of Rapid service is that buses
can go 25 percent faster. This is where the rub
comes in. Two reasons buses move slowly are delays
at intersections to board passengers and waiting
through numerous signal cycles to pass a light.

MTA Rapid planners came up with a solution by
removing bus stops to reduce delay. For example,
you can't get on or off at Kester, Hayvenhurst or
Tampa on the Ventura Line 750. And while heavy-
transit use corners of Kester and Hayvenhurst are
surrounded by apartments, high-rises and doctors
offices, local service was reduced to these stops,
and more frequently, mostly empty Rapids pass
right by.

The MTA, in conjunction with the Los Angeles
Department of Transportation, also figured out
that Rapids move faster with a $70 device that
can hold lights green for up to 20 seconds. But
heavy traffic volumes on Ventura and Van Nuys
boulevards can still take vehicles up to five
light cycles to get through. While these "pre-
emptors" can get Rapids though gridlock, LADOT
does not want to give the same advantage to the
local service. So, local service riders cannot
share the same traffic efficiencies.

In fact, just to make transit usage more difficult,
LADOT came up with the segregated boarding system,
whereby local riders access buses at the nearside
of intersections while the Rapids board on the
farside.

For decades, transit users could wait at one stop
on Van Nuys or Ventura and merely transfer to their
appropriate bus. Now, the bureaucrats have created
the "Rapid Bus Shuffle." Riders who want the next
bus now often must risk life and limb as they scurry
like rats to cross jammed intersections.

A woman in this exact situation almost died from
the injuries she sustained from a vehicle on Van
Nuys Boulevard while rushing across an intersection
to make her bus connection.

So, MTA bureaucrats have figured out that, by
dropping 25 percent of the stops from Sherman
Oaks to Pacoima, they could speed up the Rapid
buses from 12 to 16 miles per hour. That's a 25
percent gain!

But what about door-to-door travel time of the
actual riders? That really isn't important. By
abandoning heavily used Van Nuys Boulevard --
stops with connections to transferring bus lines
such as Plummer, Chase, Saticoy, Oxnard and
Kester -- the MTA figures that riders can save
up to two or three minutes' riding time. But
that's only after walking for five to 10 minutes
from the stop that was abandoned.

Of course, remember these inconvenienced riders
don't count. They are the poor, the disabled,
the seniors and the disenfranchised. The bumbling
planners think they can attract "choice riders,"
because somehow red buses are faster in the same
world-class congestion. These "choice" riders will
come to the Ventura and Wilshire Rapid Bus because
they can connect to the busy Red Line pumping out
volumes of train riders at Universal City, Vermont
and Western stations.

OK, this makes sense. The old Van Nuys Limited
Line 561 connected to train stations at both ends.
The former 2.3-mile route segment from the Sylmar
Metrolink Station to Pacoima almost always carried
half a busload of riders every trip. Now the Van
Nuys Rapid Bus dumps you at Van Nuys and San Fernando
to transfer to the Local San Fernando Road bus.

Waiting time to transfer? If you're lucky, 5 to 10
minutes, but, typically, more like 15 to 20 minutes.
Remember that the Rapid saves the bus two to three
minutes!

So, why are riders continuing to complain? Because
something is structurally wrong.

With great promise, the MTA introduced Sector
Governance Councils to bring local control to bus
service. One problem: MTA CEO Roger Snoble forgot
to give control of the Rapid Bus and the bigger bus
lines to the Valley. So, the mindless, thoughtless
planning bureaucrats control the Valley's bus service
and block all improvements gained by local control.

It is time to let Valley management run all Valley
bus service.

Michael Barack is legal research director of The
Transit Coalition, www.transitcoalition.org.

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