At the August 10 San Gabriel Valley Sector Governance Council meeting, it appears that the complaining residents of San Marino and Pasadena along Los Robles Ave. have prevailed to kick bus service off a street that has seen bus service for several decades. In fact, it appears that the change goes even further than the original MTA proposal by kicking buses off all of Los Robles south of Del Mar, instead of Glenarm as originally proposed. #687 buses will no longer make the deviation via Marengo, but will continue south to Del Mar, west of Del Mar to Fair Oaks, and looping via California and Arroyo. This leaves a two and a half mile or so gap along Los Robles Ave.

Allegedly, buses have caused damage to houses through vibration, in addition to the usual complaints about noise and air pollution. They complain that buses carry few people (which is of course true since #260 was rerouted west, and #687 does not carry any through passengers). They claim that people can catch buses on Oak Knoll (Line #485), except that the residents of Oak Knoll, as reported by Jon Hillmer, have complained about buses on their street as well. And they claim that buses from 5a.m. to 11 p.m. are disturbing their enjoyment, when most of them weren't around when buses started running (in fact, a homeowner who just bought their house in October was one of the residents complaining).

Bus service has run along Los Robles Ave. since the GRID in the mid 70's, if not longer. The change will delay passengers by forcing them to travel along congested Huntington Dr., not to mention breaking connections with other routes at Huntington and Garfield/Atlantic.

One interesting note in the residents' complaints is that they complained for years to RTD with no results (since these are, after all, public arterial streets). So will we see more of this in the future? There's the long running Weymouth Corners debate (see June 2004 Transit Advocate) [as well as similar issues in South Orange County and elsewhere-ed.]

I could see a lot of narrow streets with major bus service in the same predicament. Say goodbye to the #210 and #710, for instance, down Rossmore. Or how about the #16 through Hancock Park? The #110 through Hyde Park? These changes set a terrible precedent for connectivity and encourage any group of a few dozen residents to whine loudly enough and not just reject new bus service on their streets, but remove existing service which has been on their streets for years entirely.