One change at Metro can impact everything else. Photo:wn.com

The first is a new shuttle between East L.A. College and the Metro Gold Line Indiana Station along Atlantic Boulevard and 1st Street which began January 11th. This new line is in response to concerns expressed by eastside residents that I wrote about previously. John McCready in comments on The Source asks “Of ALL changes that have ever been made to MTA bus lines, how many were ever made by ACTUAL RIDERS that GOT IMPLEMENTED?” (capitalization in the original). Well, Mr. McCready here is an example of rider input resulting in new service.

Meanwhile it was political influence that led line 201 to be re-extended to serve Glenoaks Park as of January 9th. The whole history can be viewed on the Kymbereligh Richards’ Transit Insider website.  The ridership to Glenoaks Park was and continues to be pitiful. Richards notes the 201 when it served the Park through 2006 had a ridership of “9 per day to/from the final Glenoaks Park stop.”

Glendale Beeline started a replacement service (Route 13) when Metro cut back the 201 in Dec. 2006. By the following August, Beeline had reduced this to two round trips in morning and afternoon peak hours and one round trip at the noon hour, weekdays only.  Ridership continued to be so poor they sought to discontinue the route.

Maybe the 9 Glenoaks Park riders threw a snit to their local electeds. Nothing else explains why political pressure was applied to have the 201 re-extension occur, even though by every measure the segment has virtually no ridership demand. Metro’s service change hold forced the Beeline to continue operating its route 13 after they had announced it was cancelled and replaced with the 201. But now that Metro has extended the route 201 Beeline have not only discontinued Route 13 but posted a link to the 201 schedule on their website as the explicit replacement.

All in all a sorry state of affairs.

Did no one speak up against this, you wonder? Well, actually Kymberleigh Richards did at the November meeting of the Westside/Central Service Council.

S*I*G*H

The American Public Transportation Association (a trade group for the transit industry) announced the individual and organizational winners of the APTA Awards Oct. 4, 2011 in New Orleans during the APTA Annual Meeting and EXPO. The 2011 winner of the Outstanding Public Transportation System Achievement award in the category of providing more than 20 million annual passenger trips was Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus. Appropriately Outstanding Public Transportation Manager Award was given to Stephanie Negriff, Big Blue’s recently retired General Manager who is credited with the innovations and steady hand that led the agency to win the APTA honor.

Other local leaders honored include an Outstanding Public Transportation Business Member Award given to Sharon Greene, Principal of Sharon Greene + Associates of Laguna Beach, CA., and the Hall of Fame Award to retired Metro CEO Roger Snoble. APTA posthumously honored Cameron Beach, who died in March 2011, with the Local Distinguished Service Award for his four decades of work in the transportation industry.

Another to win an award in October was the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Transit Services Bureau Special Problems Unit, which was second runner-up for the distinguished Excellence in Criminal Investigations award co-sponsored by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and Thomson Reuters. There were 21 finalists so being among the three award recipients is an honor in itself.

Special Problems deals with property crimes such as graffiti. You can learn more about it via this press release

Lastly (and again given in October) the National Association of Railroad Passengers gave its Tracks to the Future award to Metro and Metrolink (per the citation) in recognition of their outstanding work creating an efficient, attractive public transportation system in a city many call the “car capital of the world.”

Congratulations to all the awardees!

My thanks to J.K. Drummond, a SO.CA.TA Director, for sharing a copy of the press release he picked up at a recent Metro South Bay Service Council meeting about the award to the Sheriff’s Unit.

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee wants more info on BRT and other transit projects. Photo:Light Rail Now!

One agency that does post its Board Box is Access Services, the consolidated Transportation Services Agency for Los Angeles County that also administers on behalf of the fixed route transit agencies in Los Angeles County complementary paratransit mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The December Access Services Board Box includes an intriguing bit of news in the report of Andre Colaiace, who is Deputy Executive Director for Planning and Governmental Affairs at the agency. Colaiaice attending a meeting of the American Public Transit Association (a trade group) Legislative Committee in Washington, DC.

At the meeting he learned that this past summer the Senate Banking Committee requested the Government Accountability Office (GAO) undertake studies on Bus Rapid Transit, Paratransit Services and the Coordination of Transportation Services (see pp.4-6 of the Board Box for a reproduction of the letter from the Senate to the GAO). Colaiaice notes “I have already talked to the researcher for the Coordination Study and am planning to discuss Access Services with the group who is working on the paratransit study.”

This totally flew under the radar screen. I’ll be curious to see what the GAO finds. BTW, over a decade ago I remember a GAO report dealt with coordination. That is where I first learned of an obscure entity called the Coordinating Council for Access and Mobility whose mandate is “simplify customer access to transportation, reduce duplication of transportation services, streamline federal rules and regulations that may impede the coordinated delivery of services, and improve the efficiency of services using existing resources”. Laudable goals but cross-agency cooperation has proven elusive. The GAO report of all those years ago said as much and I won’t be surprised if the new one ends up making the same conclusion.

“A new draft definition of a major service change for all service (Bus and Rail) has been drafted. The new major service change policy defines when a Title VI and EJ analysis must be done. The definition, together with a definition of fare changes requiring an equity analysis will be taken for public comment and feedback during December 2011 and January 2012.” (see p.6 and attachment #4)

This occurs as the Federal Transit Administration is in the midst of promulgating a proposed revision of the Circular outlining Title VI requirements and a new Circular of Environmental Justice guidance. The presentation notes the policy revisions reflect the updated guidance proposals which it dubs “more clear and unambiguous”.

Metro promises public outreach on the policy proposals including meetings and social media activities. As the Service Council presentation was delayed a month I expect the outreach will start in February. Just another part of Metro’s response to the Title VI compliance review.

Next Thursday the California High Speed Rail Authority is holding its monthly meeting in the Board Room at the Metro Headquarters Building adjacent to Union Station beginning at 10 a.m. The agenda is now posted online.

March of last year is when the Authority last met in Los Angeles. In the interim there has been a lot of strum and drang by critics yet the project continues plowing forward, most recently releasing a revised/more realistic 2012 draft Business Plan for comment.

Meeting items include “the outcome of the conceptual study of the Grapevine alternative” (#4) and an “update [to] the Board on Station Area Planning Funding Agreements and coordination activities with cities along the Central Valley initial construction segment and future initial operating segment” (#6). Those should result in some interesting Board discussions.

A useful overview of the status of the project was presented at this month’s meeting of the Board of the San Bernardino Associated Governments (item #17, pp.199-219). This includes analysis of the new Business Plan draft prepared by the Legislative Analyst’s Office and state Senate staff.

BTW, since I publicly worried who would succeed Alex Clifford as Metro’s high speed rail point person I’ll take this opportunity to note late March of last year Don Sepulveda was hired as Metro’s Executive Officer for Regional Rail. I’ve been impressed by his grasp of the issues on his plate as exemplified by the presentation he made in November to the annual meeting of the Train Riders’ Association of California.

In its Civil Rights Corrective Action Plan Metro stated on the first page “As of Monday, December 5, 2012 Metro has rewritten the Notice to Beneficiaries and a copy of the proposed notice is included as attachment #2. Upon approval of the FTA a decal will be produced and this notice will be posted throughout the system.” Note how accelerated the process has been that hardly two weeks after the draft text was prepared the decals began appearing on the vehicles, a clean signal how seriously Metro takes the various stipulations by the FTA contained in the compliance review.

This is part of a media campaign by Metro of outreach regarding civil rights protections which so far has also included a paragraph (“Metro Civil Rights Policy”) in the Metro Brief ads that appear in various media around the region such as for example the latest issue of the Downtown News — click on “This Week’s Issue” and flip to page two. We can expect more of this in the coming weeks and months.

This is my favorite National Train Day poster...even though it's now three years old. - DN

2012 in Southern California is also going to be a year studded with numerous motorized transportation related events. Of course the marquee event will be the opening of Phase I of the Exposition light rail line. But when this will happen and other details are still unrevealed, a state of affairs most recently explored in a Christmas Day piece in the Los Angeles Times. Likely it will be during the first half of the year but even that vague prediction is nothing more than an educated guess.

The growing awareness of urban rail’s role in our region provides the impetus for the Jan. 20, 2012 Westside Urban Forum panel event The Rail Story of Transforming Los Angeles

Smart growth and livability are themes of several 2012 events including the 11th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth Conference that will be held February 2-4, 2012 in San Diego, CA.

The motorcoach industry is a entire universe of bus transportation separate from public transit, providing transportation to the tourist industry and other economic sectors via charters and specialized services. The United Motorcoach Association Expo will be held in Long Beach Feb. 8-Feb. 12, 2012.

The economic role of infrastructure investment is one of the tracks being explored at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs Conference March 15-March 16, 2012 in Los Angeles.

The Rail Passenger Association of California and National Railroad Passenger Association will hold their joint annual conference Steel Wheels in California and Nevada March 16, 2012 in the Board room at Metro in Los Angeles.

Twice a year the Motor Bus Society holds a convention in an urban area that includes extensive behind the scene bus yard and facility tours. The Spring 2012 event will be based in Los Angeles during the weekend of Friday, April 27 through Sunday, April 29 with a focus on operators north of central Los Angeles, including Simi Valley, Oxnard-Ventura and Santa Barbara along the coast along with Bakersfield, Lancaster and Santa Clarita in the north-central area and several properties in northern Los Angeles County.

After relocating to Brea in 2010 and undergoing a hiatus in 2011, Railroad Days will return to Fullerton May 5-May 6, 2012.

The American Public Transit Association, trade group for the industry, holds conferences dealing with various aspects of public transit. This year its Bus & Paratransit Conference is being held in Long Beach May 5-May 9, 2012.

Concurrent with the conference May 4-May 8 APTA will be holding its International Roadeo in Long Beach. This is a competition where teams from various agencies test their skills in driving and maintenance.

The 5th National Train Day will be held May 12, 2012 with activities at Union Station and other rail stations in the region. Much like Railroad Days this is a great event for families that includes equipment displays and transportation related exhibitors.

Metro staff report that in the summer we can look forward to the opening of the new El Monte station and the extension of the Orange Line.

Fall will bring the 2012 Mobility 21 Southern California Transportation Summit, being held Friday, Sept. 28 at the Disneyland Hotel.

Returning to Los Angeles will be Rail~Volution, the livability and transit-oriented-development conference, October 14 – October 17, 2012.

In addition we can anticipate at the tail end of the year the latest editions of the Alt Car Expo in Santa Monica and the Clean-Air Car Show & Green-Living Expo in South Pasadena.

And this isn’t a comprehensive list. We can anticipate events being put on by such entities as the Keston Institute, Leonard Transportation Center and the San Fernando Valley Council of Governments.

All in all it looks to be a busy year for those with an interest in bus and/or rail transportation.

Click on the report go visit the CAHSR website.

I am well aware a lot of folks are having serious sticker shock about this project. But the improved business plan seems to be attacked for merely doing what critics have long asked for — provide realistic estimates of costs, ridership and the likely timing of private investment. Plus many cities are reeling from the technology’s attributes resulting in many towns being impacted without the benefit of having a station.

All that said, I am not big on second guessing the authority unlike many other rail activists. Having the first segment in the Central Valley seems a reasonable approach, especially since it is a condition of the federal funding they have been awarded. And after many convulsions this latest news of a preferred route seems to auger the project getting back on track with support from those to be most effected.

I am not unaware this is just one step in a lengthy process. And that there are many more obstacles ahead. But I think those predicting loudly of late the bullet train is on life support are being premature.

Several of the commenters posed questions about the length of time the city says is needed for completing the Wilshire lanes. For example, Allison M asked “I’m trying to understand why it will take 2 years to do the upgrades and testing after the engineering is complete? Is this normal for BRT? It seems unnecessarily long.” I passed these queries along to the L.A. Dept. of Transportation, which is taking the lead on the project. Bruce L. Gillman, LADOT’s Director of Public Information, was kind enough to confer with the city staffers working on the project and passed along this response:

The schedule for the Wilshire bus lane project involves multiple City departments that work on the design, construction of the street widening, pavement reconstruction, engineering surveys, analysis and traffic management plan. None of which can be completed in a short period of time. That said, LADOT is working with our partners to expedite this project and will continue to push ahead to make Wilshire bus lanes a reality as soon as possible.

My thanks to Mr. Gillman for the prompt response.

Coming in four years...Image via Metro website

As far as I can tell two recent agency reports with updated information on the status of important transit-related improvements went straight under the radar with nary a word in the blogsphere or mass media (much like the poorly publicized TAP cards sold by bus operator pilot project I wrote about previously). Belatedly let me share you the latest on the Wilshire Bus lane project and the Patsaouras Gateway Plaza busway station:

An Oct. 9 memo from the L.A. Dept. of Transportation to the City Council gives an update on the status of the Wilshire BRT project: “Extensive roadway improvements on Wilshire Boulevard, including curb lane reconstruction and selective street widening, will be done before the bus lanes are installed. Design and engineering is scheduled to be completed by June 2013, followed by construction of roadway improvements, traffic mitigation measures, Transit Priority System upgrades, and bus lane striping and signage. The project is expected to be completed and operational by June 2015.”

Meanwhile buried in a recent Metro staff report is the news that to have it avoid impacting the ExpressLane demonstration the Gateway Plaza station for the El Monte busway will be delayed undergoing construction and is now not due to be open until mid 2015 at the earliest. What impact the recent FTA grant for the project could have on this timetable is unknown.

The impact of the Gold Line Eastside Extension on local bus options is one thing that Eastsiders have complained about at recent meetings.

Recall the language in the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution about “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances?” Keep it in mind as you read this overview of the recent interaction of Metro, a group of disgruntled riders, and a local politico. If nothing else it illustrates what American Democracy in action looks like.

When I wrote about Metro’s February 1st ‘all regions’ public hearing for the June service change proposals, I mentioned that among the attendees were “a vocal contingent from East L.A. Their message was to reverse the truncation of lines 30/31 by instead having them again extended to Atlantic Ave.”

By April the residents with the aid of the Bus Rider’s Union held a rally to press their case that the changes had left many residents stranded and was causing hardship.

When I spoke to some of the eastsiders attending the February meeting they shared frustration about their concerns receiving a lack of attention from L.A. County Supervisor Gloria Molina and her staff. By May the Eastside Sun was reporting that Molina’s staff had gotten the message and attempting to assuage constituents’ complaints by proposing a re-routing of the El Sol community shuttle to address access issues along 1st Street.

By August Metro’s San Gabriel Valley Service Council was holding a public workshop “to listen to the concerns of East Los Angeles Metro bus patrons”along with presenting proposals to address the complaints.

Transit activist Ken Ruben attended the Workshop and afterward reported about 80 people attended with about 16 of them making comments. Besides asking for Metro’s route 30 to resume operating east of Indiana, a few of the speakers also expressed displeasure with the Gold Line eastside extension that opened in 2009.

Taking the input received at the workshop Metro staff have come up with what they term “Proposed New Service on East 1st Street” to be presented at a Special Meeting of the Council being held Monday, October 17th, 5:00 p.m. at the East Los Angeles Public Library, 4837 E. Third St. (adjacent to East L.A. Civic Center Gold Line station).

If anyone has a chance to attend the meeting please post in the comments what reception the proposal gets from the attendees–whether they feel their concerns are being addressed or that what Metro is offering falls short.

Dana, you left out a key part of her bio. Yoh was also the captain of my (last place finishing) team in the Transit People Transit Race of 2009. - DN

Earlier this week, we posted the responses of Measure R Oversight Committee Advisory Panel member Gary Painter to some questions including several suggested by readers of this blog.  Today, it is Panel member Allison Yoh’s turn.  Yoh is Associate Director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and also a past member of the Metro Board of Directors. The latter experience resulted in my asking Yoh one extra question I didn’t ask Painter.

And again I wish to express regret at the delay in getting this material ready for posting. As I said earlier, life happens.

 Gabbard: Briefly describe your academic background?

Yoh: I work in urban planning, particularly in public transit. I’ve done research on how transit agencies can increase ridership, the costs of bus rapid transit, transit improvements (operational and capital) needed to increase rider satisfaction, smart card adoption and applications, and different fare structures that could improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of transit services.

Gabbard: To what extent are you a daily train user? Is it you main means of mobility? What other modes do you use (automobile, bicycle)?

Yoh: Transit is one of the modes that I use. It is not my primary mode now, though it had been for over a decade when I first moved to LA in 1999. During that decade, I used transit for a good majority of my trips – to school, work, leisure activities, shopping, and other appointments. Now, I drive or carpool for most trips that are related to getting my child to school, doctor’s appointments, other activities, and for work. I use transit about once every week or two for work and other trips. I also walk. I bicycle/skate/scoot the least.

Gabbard: How long have they been riding transit (i.e. from what age)? Have you experienced outside of Los Angeles, outside of California and outside of North America? Any impressions or thoughts about our system comp[ared to others?

Yoh: I’ve been using transit since I was about 17 years old. I’ve used transit in the Bay Area and in Southern California. Outside of California, I’ve used transit in other large urban areas (New York, Boston, etc.) and also in not-so-large, not-so-urban areas too (Florida). Outside of North America, I’ve used transit in Paris, London (and suburbs), Stockholm (and other areas in Sweden), Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and San Juan (Costa Rica).

My impressions/thoughts about our system compared to others? Well, the experiences I’ve had run the gamut. One thing I can say is that LA’s transit system can get you anywhere you need to go. We have great coverage. What we don’t have, however, is good reliability. You can get anywhere, but how long it will take and whether your vehicle is on time is another story. I think LA’s transit system would benefit immensely from having a network of bus-only lanes to pull transit vehicles out of congested general flow lanes. It is something that would require far less in capital costs (compared, for example, with rail), it would improve throughput on our street systems, and it would reduce travel time and wait times.

However, such a system would require a lot of political will and leadership, and support from the local governments that maintain and operate the roads. In other parts of the world, particularly in Europe and Asia, there is a strong public willingness to support transit and to make it a viable mode – in terms of giving it priority and making it a convenient way to travel.

Gabbard: What reaction did you have when asked to serve on the panel? Have you undergone any briefings or been supplied with any materials by the agency prepatory to your service? Have you been given an idea when the panel may be convened and how often it is anticipated it will meet?

Yoh: I am very honored to serve on the panel — there were many well-qualified candidates whom Metro considered. I keep in touch with Metro staff on occasion as questions arise. I’ve been told that the oversight panel will draw on advisory members on an as-needed basis, and perhaps on an individual-by-individual basis when certain questions arise.

Gabbard: What further improvements would you make to the present Metro system, if any?

Yoh: In addition to more bus only lanes as I mentioned above, I would encourage Metro to improve the frequency of their bus services, and particularly the reliability of their bus schedules, since buses provide the most extensive geographic coverage in our region. Rail lines have the advantage of operating in their own rights of way, which helps with reliability and on-time performance, and these service qualities are possible with buses as well if you provide dedicated lanes. If Metro Rail is the “backbone” of the transit system, as I’ve heard some advocates and transit officials proclaim, then Metro Bus and Rapid are really the muscle that supports the backbone. I’d put rail only in corridors with extremely high levels of congestion because rail is so expensive to build.

Metro has recently launched a rather aggressive campaign to provide real-time information (via smart phones, internet, etc.) on bus and rail arrival and travel times. I’d encourage them to continue these programs.

Finally, I’d improve the way that we collect and set transit fares to better reflect the costs of providing services and to improve the equity of how we charge fares. With smart cards, we can begin to really innovate with our fare structures through incentive programs, distance-based, time-of-day-based, and mode-based fares that could really transform the system.

Gabbard: Are you excited at the prospect of undertaking this advisory role to a public entity?

Yoh: Yes!

Gabbard: Has your time serving on the Metro Board effected how you see this appointment? In what way?

Yoh: That’s a good question. On the Metro Board, I voted on very difficult choices. There are many critical improvements needed for LA’s transit system, but these all carry with them price tags and opportunity costs. Now is a particularly hard time for transit across the nation as agencies are expected to maintain service levels at a time when people need affordable travel options and yet, it is exactly at this time when revenues to support operations and maintenance are down. LA is quite unique (and perhaps in a better relative position) because of Measure R. There is no shortage of the ways we can make transit better. The toughest work is political.

Professor Gary Painter

Below are the responses of Painter, who as I previously noted is Director of the Graduate Program in Public Policy and Management for the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development. Yoh’s responses will follow tomorrow.

Gabbard: Briefly describe your academic background?

Painter: I was trained as an economist at UC Berkeley, and have been at USC since 1996. I primarily conduct research on housing markets and education policy. My main focus has been on the housing and locational choices of immigrants. I have only conducted one study of immigrant transit mode choice, so my academic expertise on transportation policy issues is limited.

Gabbard: To what extent are you a daily train user? Is it you main means of mobility? What other modes do you use (automobile, bicycle)?

I either take transit or I telecommute. I drive to either the Willow, Norwalk, or Lakewood park and ride, and then take transit in to USC from there.

How long have they been riding transit (i.e. from what age)? Have you experienced outside of Los Angeles, outside of California and outside of North America? Any impressions or thoughts about our system compared to others?

I have riding transit exclusively since 2007. I ride the DC Metro at least 3 times a year, and rode BART daily when living in Northern California. I have also used public transit in Europe. The metro cars and buses are generally not as nice as the other systems. The metro cars appear to be designed for low capacity usage.

Gabbard: What reaction did you have when asked to serve on the panel? Have you undergone any briefings or been supplied with any materials by the agency prepatory to your service? Have you been given an idea when the panel may be convened and how often it is anticipated it will meet?

I was happy to participate as a transit rider. I have not been briefed at this point as to what my role might be.

Gabbard: What further improvements would you make to the present Metro system, if any?

As gas prices have increased, the metro system has become much more crowded. The park n rides are at capacity before 7:30am on most days (Willow is an exception). My concern is that the system does not have a reasonable way to accommodate increases in demand.

Are you excited at the prospect of undertaking this advisory role to a public entity?

I am pleased to serve.

Gabbard: “Would you be willing to sell your car and rely on public transportation for at least 90% of your trips while you are a member of the panel? If not, why not? Would you be willing to give up your position to a current transit user who does not use a car?”

I suppose in some ways we are not completely representative of all transit riders because I have the choice to drive every day, but choose not to. I would not give up my auto for all of the other mobility issues. Some households do not have a car, and therefore have no other options, and I could imagine the need for their voice as well.

Slowly the short-sighted inadequacies of the foregoing assumptions created discontent among patrons and the operators until the problem could no longer be ignored by Metro management. In early 2010 Metro quietly implemented a work around procedure for converting a Metro-to-Muni transfer into a day pass when a passenger puts money in the farebox but does not tell the operator they lack the plastic card until afterwards (see pages 3-4 of attachment D of this TAP/gating update presented at the Feb. 18, 2010 Metro Board Executive Management and Audit Committee meeting.

And the long-term solution? Until recently it was supposed to be paper TAP cards with embedded chips issued to bus operators that are capable of having day passes loaded onto them for up to 30 days. Only one problem–when Metro management belatedly sought input from the drivers about this idea the response was quite negative as indicated in this TAP/gating update presented at the May 19, 2011 Metro Board Executive Management and Audit Committee meeting. Drivers felt having paper TAP cards would just create customer confusion. The TAPucrats concluded “Therefore if an on-board Day Pass is reinstated, TAP Operations will explore options for implementing the pass through a permanent plastic TAP card instead of using limited use media that may become a source of customer disputes”.

Guess what? In conjunction with launching the cost reduction of day passes to $5 last month Metro did indeed start making available TAP cards for loading day passes onto to bus operators as part of a six month pilot program. The best explanation is in a Metro news release posted on the Mid City West Community Council’s website (and strangely is nowhere to be found on the Metro website).

And has Metro ballyhooed this significant developement? Actually, no. This page on the agency website (revised in July) mentions it in passing, ditto this posting on The Source. The take ones mentioning it on board buses (headlined “We’re a cheap date”) bury the news and emphasize instead the day pass cost reduction, much in the manner of this news release on the Metro website. The TAP/gating update being presented at this month’s Metro Board Operations Committee meeting lists it merely as a milestone completed among many
others of equal significance (see p.6).

And of course the proof is in the implementation. How well has the new procedure been communicated to bus operators? Are they being issued TAP cards? I’d appreciate anyone reading this who has witnessed an operator have a TAP card at the ready to load a day pass onto for a patron who lacked one post a comment describing what you saw. Also whether you have spotted a driver still making use of the transfer work-around. Or even drivers professing to have no remedy at all (and thus seemingly signifying that the word is
indeed not getting out).

And of course we can expect many more bumps on the road to TAP being fully rolled out. What fun!

(Update:This morning I actually witnessed a bus operator sell a TAP card and load a day pass on it during my commute to work. And what I saw raised some further concerns. It was on Metro’s line 200 on Alvarado southbound at 3rd Street. As that bus carries a heavy load during morning rush on that portion of the route the driver could only quote the $6 price without further explanation and have the patron hastily feed the money into the farebox after which the driver handed over the card. As we were about to hit another heavy activity stop (6th Street) there was no time to explain that a dollar of the cost paid for the card, or that the card is reusable including for the $5 day pass. I’d suggest drivers have some sort of explanatory literature they could hand out when selling TAP cards with details about the pilot program, but that is impractical as frankly bus operators already have way too many distractions to deal with along with safely operating their vehicle, like seniors and the disabled who try to pay just twenty-five cents during weekday rush hour and have to be told from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. the senior/disabled fare is fifty five cents. Maybe at least Metro’s Marketing Dept. could produce a take one flyer solely devoted to explaining the pilot program to inform patrons what is happening.

I’d like to acknowledge the assistance of SO.CA.TA Director and San Pedro resident J.K. Drummond who made me aware of this program’s implementation plus provided some of the details of the outreach for it (such as it is). – Dana)

BTW, if you took a careful look at the aforementioned TAP/gating update being presented at the Operations Committee this week it includes some interesting peeks at the latest plans of Metro staff to have the gating of the rail stations move foward, excerpts of which I present below — I am very curious if they will really go forward with this next month…

*Staff has developed an implementation plan to test locking gates that will quantify the numbers of transfers and non-TAP fare media presented at the selected test stations.

*Four stations have been identified as test environments for gate locking. These stations have one entrances and limited external transfer activity. These stations are: Hollywood/Western; Vermont Beverly, Wilshire/Normandie and Wilshire/Western.

*The approach includes notifying patrons in advance of testing; providing Metrolink and EZ Transit Pass patrons with TAP-enabled fare media alternatives and converting the Ticket Vending Machines to TAP-only Operations.

*Testing would commence in October with a target goal of expanding a lockedgate environment throughout the Metro Red and Purple Lines in 2012.

Division 6 circa 1958. Photo:Metro Transportation Library and Archive/Flickr

My bus fan contacts have tipped me off that Friday some Metro buses that have been retired will be on display for inspection at Metro’s Division 6 in Venice from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.  This is a rare chance to enter a Metro bus yard and take a look-see, albeit ostensibly to inspect buses that are up for sale.

The actual sale will be Saturday morning, 9 a.m. at the auction houses’ Gardena facility.  The Metro buses will be sold in absentia.

Division 6 has been a transportation facility since 1901, when it was originally a carhouse and powerhouse serving the Red Car fleet. In 1951 a bus yard replaced the carhouse. Given its limited size and ongoing pressure from the surrounding residential neighborhood Metro has several times explored replacing it. The most extensive effort started in 2003 when the Metro Board approved a landswap where Division 6 would be developed in return for the developer providing Metro with a new larger bus yard in an industrial area on the westside.

Some of the local histories of Division 6 are in this draft environmental document and a 2005 certification of the final environmental document by the Metro Board. Shortly after the environmental documents were adopted the deal imploded. NIMBY opposition to both the new yard and to the scale of the proposed development in Venice killed the deal. The swap subsequently was even mentioned in the media as possibly being an element of the scandal that brought down Union bigshot and former L.A. Council member Martin Ludlow (no charges about the yard and Ludlow were ever filed). BTW, the Councilman who helped kill the deal by pandering to Venice NIMBYs? Bill Rosendahl. And so the neighbors in Venice killed the development but ended up still having Division 6 in their midst.

Recently I’d again heard rumors Division 6 might be closed soon. It has no Compressed Natural Gas fueling capacity so its fleet has to be fueled off-site for reasons why this is so are outlined in a 2009 staff report. But now I am hearing Metro CEO Art Leahy has said publically despite the challenging logistics that it will continue to be active. I imagine Leahy would agree with the reasons for doing so laid out in a 1997 analysis of the cost-effectiveness of Division 6 which in a nutshell says it is all about location, location, location.

I’d appreciate anyone who has a chance to attend the bus inspection session Friday to share their impressions in the comments section.

Dana Gabbard does not like the 902 service. Photo:MetroRider 14/Flickr

June 26 Metro will be implementing what are in some cases rather substantial service changes.

The Recommendations of the Blue Ribbon panel and remarks made late last year by Metro’s Deputy Executive Officer for Service Planning and Scheduling Conan Cheung signaled substantial trims in revenue service hours were in the offing. Also an evaluation of Metro Rapid service prepared last year outlined criteria for the “adjustments” of the Rapids network subsequentky undertaken last Dec. and this month.

In the face of public consternation Metro management have mostly defended the need to reduce service, with CEO Art Leahy issuing A message to our customers and taxpayers and authoring an op-ed in the Daily News, both of them justifying these actions.

The best extended critique deconstructing and deflating Metro’s assertions has been put forward by Thomas Rubin, Controller-Treasurer of the Southern California Rapid Transit District from 1989 until 1993 with an extensive background as a consultant on transportation finance to the public and private sectors and author of numerous papers on transportation issues. In a piece titled Los Angeles: the MTA’s Bus Stop Strategy Rubin provides a history lesson and some analysis. This includes thoroughly debunking Metro management’s claim that their buses operating at an average of 42% capacity means something is wrong:

The 42% figure is evidently derived by dividing Metro’s FY09 bus average passenger load – passengers-miles/vehicle revenue miles – by the average number of seats on Metro buses. The figure looks low, doesn’t it? Think about all those empty seats.

However, unlike an airline flight from LAX to JFK, Metro buses make many stops along their routes to pick up and drop off passengers. Bus scheduling is developed around the maximum carrying capacity of a bus at the peak load point of the route during the peak ridership period. This means that, for much of the day, and for most of even the busiest bus trips, there are a lot of empty seats. That’s the nature of the transit business.

While some of the worst ideas initially proposed (like having line 460 no longer serve downtown Los Angeles) were discarded or massaged to be less draconian there are still aspects of the changes that leave me shaking my head. For instance line 26 (Virgil) should have been retained a least during peak hours; now instead riders will face cramming onto the already overloaded parallel lines that serve Vermont. Or how about the 450X that in peak will now include selected trips that run from downtown Los Angeles to San Pedro while in mid-day and weekends it will simply run between San Pedro and the Artesia Transit Center as a connector for the Silver Line? Talk about a recipe for customer confusion!

Well, at least they are cancelling the idiotic line 902. The less said about that wrong headed demonstration line, the better.

And this isn’t the end of the service trimming as Metro plans additional cuts in December. A presentation Metro Budget Director Frank Shapiro made at the May 25th meeting of the Metro Citizens’ Advisory Council included among its assumptions the elimination of 61,000 revenue service hours during the Dec. shakeup. Public hearings for comments on the initial staff proposals to carry out the further cuts will be held in August, so mentally prepare yourself for a junior version of what we just went through.

Passing Measure R was just the beginning. Image:Long Beach Post

For example, in a previous commentary I laid out the history of the Measure R Independent Taxpayers Oversight Committee, which per the ordinance (section 8) is composed of three retired federal judges where the Mayor of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Supervisors and the “other cities” of the county each choose one of the three. The Committee is tasked to appoint an advisory panel to assist it, made up of various folks representing various professions or areas of expertise.

My intrigue at all this was that the specified categories for members of the panel included “transit system user”. I was curious how Metro would recruit someone to fill this role. There was even a rumor at one point some folks had me in mind. My thought process was maybe Metro would do outreach via The Source and/or the Metro Monthly take one brochure to recruit interested riders to apply.

What Metro did instead was contact the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies and USC School of Policy, Planning and Development and asked if they could provide candidates to fill the transit user slots. The February staff report to the Committee lists Dr. Allison Yoh, Associate Director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, and Gary Painter, Director of the Graduate Program in Public Policy and Management for the USC School of Policy, Planning and Development, as the candidates advanced by their respective academic units. I understand the Committee has accepted as suitable to sit on the Advisory Panel all the candidates nominated by the various entities Metro contacted. And I should hasten to add that besides their impressive academic credentials Yoh and Painter are daily transit users.

I am unaware of any documentation laying out Metro’s rational for deciding to seek academics to fill the role of transit users, and I won’t conjecture in the absence of information. Yoh may be familiar to some as from 2001 to 2003 she served a stint on the Metro Board. Her appointment to it by James Hahn was fulfilling a campaign promise he had made to place a transit user on the Metro Board if he was elected.

Yoh and Painter have kindly consented to respond to some questions I have about their new roles. But I first wanted to give the readers of this blog a chance to make suggestions for what those questions should include. If you have some please post them as comments. After a few days I’ll review the suggested questions and at my discretion include some of them among those I use to query Yoh and Painter.

So what is the question you want answered?

Can someone let me know if the goatee is back? - DN Photo: City Hall Insider

Originally Stephen Villavaso of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition was scheduled to be the guest speaker at the Southern California Transit Advocates May 14th meeting, only to have a conflict force him to request to be rescheduled to our June meeting. As I scrambled to seek a replacement Nick Matonak who handles the Facebook page for SO.CA.TA suggested we have Stephen Box as a speaker. And upon being contacted Box with great enthusiasm said yes.

Given the tight timing Box has carte blanche to talk on whatever topic he wants. And of course afterward we’ll have a period for q&a with the audience.

The meeting is held at Angelus Plaza in downtown Los Angeles, 255 S. Hill Street, on the fourth floor. The location is served by numerous transit lines including the Pershing Square Red/Purple Line station. Box’s presentation begins at 2:15 p.m. The business portion of the meeting starts at 1 p.m., with a break from 2 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. The meeting is free and open to the public. I’m looking forward to it.

The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority is co-sponsoring workshops with the cities in the 12.6-mile corridor between Azusa and Montclair along which the Authority hopes to extend the Gold Line. The subject of the meetings are proposed station sites in Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona, Claremont and Montclair. The meetings begin this coming Monday.

Meeting details can be found in a flyer posted on the Authority’s website.

Some folks are gung-ho for this extension. Others of us much less so. But I will acknowledge the Authority has been quite pro-active in its public outreach, which these workshops are an example of.

In the coming months, the Authority will host tours of the Metro Gold Line light rail line between Pasadena and Los Angeles. Streetsblog is going to sign up for one of those tours, and we want you to come along.  Contact Damien at damien@streetsblog.org if you’re interested in riding the rails with a group of Streetsbloggers.  The Authority claims that the tours will provide an opportunity to experience how light rail interacts within communities, the design of stations and street crossings and the various train sounds.

Photo:SoCalMetro/Flickr

Last year Culver CityBus briefly stopped running its buses onto the campus of West Los Angeles College as Culver City Vice Mayor Micheál O‘Leary noted at the August 2, 2010 City Council meeting “with the understanding that the College would be providing service from the street into the College. … since the College failed to keep that commitment the City saw the need to resume the service again and to also resume discussions with the College regarding the issue.” Ari Noonan in his recent article “Almost with a Smile, West Accepts Bus Sked Compromise. Residents Don’t” delves into the actions of former West L.A. College President Mark Rocha that resulted in the brief removal of service.

Noonan also provides context to the recent City Council action approving schedule modifications to the bus lines serving the campus. Residents of the Lakeside Villa condo complex next to the college have complained of what they claim is intolerable bus noise and have kept up this drumbeat of NIMBY whining until the college and Culver CityBus consulted and proposed to adjust the service. The condo residents are not satisfied, evidently having as their goal the elimination of service onto campus. Thankfully it appears the city and college are only willing to go so far to meet their complaints. In this case NIMBYism has had an impact but only to a certain degree.

Now in San Pedro there is a movement by the San Pedro Coastal Neighborhood Council to have Metro route 246 no longer operate along Paseo Del Mar, currently part of the turn-around loop at its southern end. NIMBY complaints by homeowners about buses with demands that service be re-routed–sound familiar? Agenda item #18 at March 21st meeting of the Council’s Governing Board states “Motion objecting to current route of MTA Line 246 and proposing that MTA work with community to establish an alternative” The meeting is 6:30pm – 9pm at:

Cabrillo Marina Community Building
Cabrillo Plaza, Berth 28
2853 Via Carbillo Marina Way

Bus users from the area might want to attend and express opinions regarding the Council’s stance. Hopefully as in Culver City a fair compromise can be found that isn’t simply pandering to NIMBY demands.

My thanks to activists J.K. Drummond of San Pedro and Ken Ruben of Culver City for bringing the situations in their respective communities to my attention.