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Southern California Transit Advocates is a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion, development and improvement of public transportation in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

SO.CA.TA comments on proposed June 2009 Metro service changes

Summary of comments to all five Metro Service Sectors regarding the proposed June service changes, organized by sector. We have also created a separate page summarizing all the proposals, our positions, and the final disposition of the proposals.

Metro Gateway Cities

We support the proposals for Lines 26, 51 and 53 as being consistent with our previously stated positions in 2007, with the Line 26 proposal conditioned on LADOT providing the same span of service as present service. We also support the Line 254 proposal and have no objection to the Line 105 proposal.

We continue to oppose the proposal for Line 128, as our opinion has not changed since 2007. The proposed routing is less desirable, in our view, than the current service to La Mirada Town Center. We remind sector staff that the city of Cerritos objects to the realignment of service to Cerritos Towne Square and again suggest that Line 128 be instead extended to the Buena Park Metrolink Station.

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Metro San Fernando Valley

We support the proposals for Lines 94-394, 224, and 724-794, noting that the proposed changes are in agreement with our position during last year's service change program that Metro Rapid service for the San Fernando Rd. corridor should follow the route and schedule of the now-canceled Line 394. To that end, we strongly urge the restoration of weekend service on reconfigured Line 794, matching the previous weekend Line 394 service. We also wish to note for the record that the blind adherence to the 2001 Metro Rapid implementation plan, demanded by Metro's lawyers, resulted in the misconfiguration of service in a highly transit-dependent corridor.

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Metro San Gabriel Valley

We do not object to the interrelated proposals for Lines 68, 287, and 487, provided that the route between Indiana Station and Montebello Town Center maintains the base service level of 30 minutes presently provided by Lines 30 and 68.

We support the Line 620 proposal.

Regarding the Line 177 proposal, we would like to repeat our position of a year ago; we realize that the transfer of the westernmost segment to Glendale Beeline in 2000, and the subsequent cancellation east of Sierra Madre Villa Gold Line Station in 2005 has left the remaining service difficult to operate effectively within Metro's service warrants. While we do not specifically object to the current proposal, we would suggest that Line 177 be operated by ARTS, and we urge you to continue operating the full service until a transfer to that agency can be negotiated.

We note that the proposal for Line 256 appears to include our suggestion of a year ago to transfer the Pasadena-Altadena route segment to ARTS; we do not object to this proposal provided that transfer takes place and that the remainder of the route is also transferred to another operator.

However, we strongly object to the proposal for new Line 910, with concerns in several areas:

  1. Operationally - Any service-affecting event in downtown Los Angeles, such as at Staples Center, presently only has an effect on Harbor Transitway service. Under this proposal, anything affecting service coming from the south will also have a negative effect on eastbound El Monte Busway service, due to the interlined nature of the proposed service. We also have concerns that when the El Monte Busway is closed for construction, forcing service onto mixed traffic lanes on the I-10 freeway, southbound Harbor Transitway service will be adversely affected; again, such service-affecting conditions under the current configuration would be limited to the El Monte Busway service.
  2. Span of Service - There is no reference in the proposal to the maintenance of span of service to match the existing service on Lines 446-447, 484 and 490, and to guarantee timed transfer connections to the replacement local lines, especially for connections made by the last southbound trips at Artesia Transit Center and the last eastbound trips at El Monte Station.
  3. Security - At present, most passengers ride through the proposed hub locations on Lines 446-447, 484 and 490. We are concerned that there will be insufficient security for passengers forced to disembark at the Line 910 terminals and wait for connecting service. We are especially concerned about this condition at Artesia Transit Center.
  4. Mismatched Service Levels - We believe this proposal will result in considerably higher service levels on the Harbor Transitway than passenger needs dictate, and we fear that this will result in the creation of shortline "El Monte Busway-only" trips in future service change programs. Should that prove true, we would have to ask why there was a combination of the two corridors in the first place; we instead suggest that question be asked now.

We therefore suggest that the Line 910 proposal, as presented, is flawed and should not be considered for implementation without further study.

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Metro South Bay

We support the proposals for Lines 111 and 711 and do not object to the Line 126 proposal.

We also continue to take no position on the proposal for Line 209. However, as we did last year, we still suggest that this proposal may be too "political" to be considered for implementation, given the Bus Riders Union having forced the restoration of service when the same changes were previously implemented.

We now find that we must oppose the proposal for Line 124, as our concerns for the need to maintain service area coverage, raised during last year's service change program, do not appear to have been addressed.

We do not object to the Line 125 proposal but suggest that if the westernmost route segment is transferred to another provider Line 125 service continue to operate to the Plaza El Segundo shopping center at Sepulveda Blvd. and Rosecrans Ave., rather than terminating at Douglas Green Line Station.

We oppose the Line 207 proposal due to connectivity issues at Hollywood/Western Red Line Station that would result from the realignment.

While we had supported the previous Line 439 proposal last year, that support was conditioned on replacement service to downtown being provided by the re-extension of Line 534 to downtown Los Angeles on its previous alignment (as Line 434) and/or the extension of Line 35 over the route of Line 439 to Fox Hills Mall. As it appears obvious these suggestions have not been acceptable to sector staff, we now oppose the proposal and suggest that any changes to Line 439 be postponed until the Expo Line bus-rail interface plan is developed.

We support the Line 444 proposal only if the line is transferred in its entirety to an alternate provider with a guarantee of present service levels being maintained.

(For Line 910 see Metro San Gabriel Valley.)

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Metro Westside/Central

We do not object to the interrelated proposals for Lines 14 and 714, provided that there are no negative service impacts to the Line 37 branch of Line 14.

We also do not object to the proposal for Lines 30-31, but note that we have conditioned our support of the related proposal for Line 287 in the San Gabriel Valley sector on the maintenance of the service level of 30 minutes presently provided by Lines 30 and 68 between Indiana Station and Montebello Town Center.

We oppose the proposal for Line 220. It appears that our suggestion of a year ago to explore the option of transferring service to Culver CityBus was explored but not proved feasible; we suggest that only the segment duplicated by Santa Monica Big Blue Bus Line 12 be canceled, and the remaining Line 220 service replaced by an extension of some Line 10 trips presently terminating in West Hollywood.

We oppose the proposal for Line 704 as we understand it. Terminating all (or even half) of the present service at Westwood Blvd. will result in a significant burden being transferred to Big Blue Bus Line 1 (we note that in previous service change proposals, the cancellation of non-owl Line 4 service west of Westwood Blvd. was to be mitigated by the creation of Line 704).

We also object to the Line 730 proposal. In fact, we question the need for Rapid service on this short segment of Pico Blvd., with a travel time savings of ten minutes. We suggest that Line 730 be canceled and the previous peak-hour Line 330 service be restored; if Rapid service along any portion of the route is indeed justified, we suggest that it be operated as an extension of Big Blue Bus Rapid 7.

Finally, we oppose the Line 920 proposal as the incorrect approach to solving the problem of this line's performance, and we believe this proposal will exacerbate the existing insufficient layover zone situation in Westwood. We suggest that the line be reconfigured to operate peak-hour/peak-direction (westbound mornings, eastbound afternoons) along the entire alignment.