The newish FlyAway bus from Westwood to LLAX

The even newer AmtrakCalifornia bus from Westwood to Van Nuys train station connecting to northbound Surfliners going to Santa Barbara.

Isn't this the corridor where BRU is advocating for a Bus Only Lane? Does traffic ever so bad there that it would help improve reliability and reduce travel time?

Whatever the BRU's position is, basic rationality dictates you take the opposite position. That's been talked to death, though. Expounding on it gives the illusion that the BRU is relevant.

For the second part of the question: Yes, Metro is planning "bus-only" lanes for Wilshire Boulevard. As for the second question: Metro makes the case that bus only lanes will improve reliability and travel time.

Travel time would be improved, but by how much remains to be seen. Will bus lanes make Wilshire more reliable? Highly doubtful.

Here are a few problems:
1. When Metro opened the Orange Line in 2005, it has maintained that at just 20,000 daily boardings, it has been over capacity since Day 1. And the Orange Line is as ideal bus rapid transit as it comes. It doesn't have to fight traffic and boarding is relatively fast. Yet for all the expense of building the Orange Line, you get service that tops out at somewhere beneath 20,000 boardings.

This pretty much means that BRT is inappropriate for the very high ridership of Los Angeles.

It certainly would be inappropriate for the 720 corridor, which has around 70,000 boardings and has to contend with parallel and intersecting traffic.

It also calls for something to be done about the couple dozen or so local bus corridors that have higher ridership than the Orange Line.

2. The "bus-only" lanes will have too many bottlenecks. For one thing, L.A. defines "buses only" as including cars that need to turn right. So, buses cannot advance while cars have to wait for pedestrians to clear. Next you will likely have the city of L.A. seeking dispensations for taxis. Then, you'll have lane intruders, such as scofflaw cars who'll try to sneak by when the cops or the Tiger Team isn't looking or even cars who'll just pull in to pick up or drop off someone.

And I'll now give the lectern over to Streetsblog's bicycle community as to whether cyclists will assert their rights to "bus only" lanes.

3. The issue of three incompatible classes of service has not been resolved. Wilshire has local (20), Rapid (720), and Rapid Rapid (920) buses. How will leapfrogging be handled? Probably by merging into traffic lanes, but ...

4. Taking away two lanes of traffic doesn't reduce congestion; it merely displaces it. Whatever car traffic that doesn't have to take Wilshire will migrate to another street. This slows down all of the buses parallel to and intersecting with Wilshire. And for the remaining lanes, that already move glacially with no separate space for buses, they are somehow going to have to absorb the traffic of one lane. You can pretty much rule out leapfrogging.

5. If you build bus only lanes, they will come. But you really do not want to encourage more people to ride buses where too many people are riding now.

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