Busway Extension Job Likely to Hurt--Before It Helps

Originally viewed as an experiment, the San Bernardino Freeway busway has turned out to be one of this region’s few transit success stories since it opened about a decade ago.

Pleased with the way commuters have taken to the nation’s first busway, state transportation planners are ready to extend it into downtown Los Angeles. It now stops just short of the central business district.

The busway’s long-delayed completion, however, threatens to be a thorn in the side of many downtown motorists during its 2 1/2-year construction period. Like a major accident, the heavy construction work could set off a chain reaction, causing traffic to back up from one downtown freeway to another.

By most freeway building standards, the San Bernardino Freeway busway extension is not a massive job. Its cost is $25.3 million, compared to $100 million or more for a mile of new freeway. The cost includes such items as $350,000 to direct and control traffic during the construction period.

Heavily Traveled Corridor

The state Department of Transportation is faced with trying to squeeze the busway’s final mile through a narrow, heavily traveled freeway corridor between Union Station and the old Maier Brewery near the downtown Civic Center.

The corridor is located near the spot where two freeways come together to form a Y. The Santa Ana Freeway slices through the Civic Center, brushes by Union Station and then bridges the Los Angeles River to join the San Bernardino Freeway.

Not only is this stretch a vital link in the Los Angeles regional freeway system, but it also is an important section of the multi-freeway loop that encircles downtown Los Angeles. The corridor is a gateway to the San Gabriel Valley and Southeast Los Angeles County/Orange County, and traffic there, measured near Union Station, averages close to 150,000 cars and trucks a day, with peak freeway loads hitting 155,000 vehicles.

Extending from Mission Road, the busway’s present end, to Alameda Street, the busway project includes building a half-mile-long span over the Los Angeles River. The bridge is being squeezed into the narrow corridor, passing within 13 feet of the city’s Piper Technical Center building and within five feet of the freeway.

Potential Disruptions

Working so close to a heavily used freeway poses problems. Not since the downtown freeway loop was completed in the 1960s has Los Angeles been faced with a highway construction project so potentially disruptive.

Some freeway ramps and sections of city streets will be closed at various times, the freeway lanes restriped and new, temporary traffic signs put up.

Planners in the California Department of Transportation said they are taking steps to keep confusion and traffic tie-ups at a minimum.

For example, much of the construction work, including freeway lane closures, will be done at night. Contractors bidding on the project have been warned not to schedule any work within view of freeway motorists during the morning and evening commuter rush hours and an hour-by-hour timetable has been set up to specify when and how many freeway lanes can be closed.

Traffic Unpredictable

Even so, freeway traffic buildups are unpredictable.

“There’s always the problem of gawkers,” conceded Jerry Baxter, a Caltrans deputy district director.

Completion of the busway into downtown Los Angeles has been a major goal for the Southern California Rapid Transit District. RTD buses have plied the busway since the specially built lanes, located next to the freeway and in its median, were opened in January, 1973. Built as a federal demonstration project, the busway was a bargain at $61 million.

Idea Had Its Critics

Critics had ridiculed the idea, claiming that it would not work and warning that the freeway would be littered with bus-car accidents. They also said commuters would not use it despite promised 10- to 20-minute time savings over driving their own cars.

Most of these predictions, however, missed the mark.

Steve Parry, the RTD’s manager for bus planning, said the 19 lines feeding into the busway from the San Gabriel Valley and beyond are now carrying about 24,000 patrons daily, up from 10,500 when the busway opened. As many as 180 buses a day, including some of the RTD’s big double-deckers, travel the special lanes.

Public acceptance is evident at the RTD’s El Monte park-and-ride lot, which is always filled in the daytime. Initially, the sprawling yard had 750 parking spaces. It was enlarged recently to 1,500 spaces, and, Parry said, it may be double-decked later on.

Popular With Car-Poolers

The busway has proved popular to car-poolers. Recent counts put the figure at more than 5,100 during rush hours. Because of the busway, the San Bernardino Freeway has the Los Angeles region’s highest car occupancy rate--1.6 persons in each vehicle compared to a 1.2 average for the regional freeway system as a whole.

There have been some busway-related accidents but not in the numbers some people feared. Cars traveling at high speeds have careened into the center divider. But, Parry said, the busway has had only one fatal accident. It happened when a car struck a Caltrans truck parked on the busway’s shoulder.

RTD believes that extending the busway into downtown will lure even more bus riders, despite the fact that fares will go up on July 1 from $1.25 to $1.90 and probably will be even higher when the extension is completed.

Although the busway extension will trim only 45 seconds or so from the El Monte-to-downtown run, Caltrans planners and RTD officials believe that its greatest benefit will be enabling buses and car pools to avoid the merging traffic between Mission Road and Alameda Street.

Frequent Delays

Under the present routing, busway vehicles must get back on the freeway for a short distance to reach Alameda Street. RTD officials said that this conflict with freeway traffic, both east and westbound, has caused frequent delays.

Caltrans selected the span over the river, paralleling the Hollywood Freeway’s north side, for the busway’s extension even though it will take some brewery property, on the north side of the freeway, and a long, narrow strip of Union Station property.

Property costs will run considerably higher than the $2.4 million originally estimated.

Right-of-way agents said the state offered $525,000 for nearly 1.25 acres of brewery property east of Union Station. The condemnation price will be determined at a scheduled trial. Another condemnation proceeding fixed the cost for a 50- to 60-foot-wide strip of Union Station property, totaling less than two acres, at $4.2 million. It includes some tracks, the station’s old Railway Express Agency building and the south end of the parking lot.

Rebuild Boarding Platforms

Because Amtrak trains still use Union Station, Caltrans is required to rebuild the boarding platforms and tracks north of the terminal without loss of track capacity.

A small bus station, costing about $220,000, will be built in a corner of Union Station’s parking lot near Alameda Street. This will give the busway a total of four stations.

The city also will get a badly needed widening and repaving job on Alameda Street to handle more buses and increased traffic because of the busway.

While the busway’s downtown extension will complete the project planned many years ago, it will not be the end of the story. The busway was built with the idea that eventually it would be converted to a light rail line, but that is some years away.

May Extend to East

Heinz Heckeroth, Caltrans’ Los Angeles district director, said studies are under way to extend the busway east from El Monte to West Covina. This, he said, will be another step in the freeways’ evolution into a system with, as he put it, “a much higher people-moving capacity.”

Using the San Bernardino Freeway busway’s success as a selling point, Caltrans is preparing an experimental high-occupancy lane on the Artesia Freeway for commuter use next month.

The additional lane, eastbound only, will be in the freeway’s median shoulder between the Harbor and San Gabriel River freeways during evening rush hours. One of the lane’s biggest advantages, Caltrans points out, is that it can be readied, primarily with new signs and restriping, at the modest cost of $250,000.