El Monte Busway Is Rousing but Solitary Success in L.A.

Although the El Monte Busway, which runs 11 miles along the San Bernardino Freeway, is one of the most successful such transit lines in the nation, the Southern California Rapid Transit District has no plans to repeat this success.

The busway, which opened in 1973 and cost $61 million to build, now carries more than 42,000 riders a day between the El Monte terminal and Mission Road, near downtown Los Angeles. Of these, 25,000 ride buses, the rest van and car pools for three or more passengers.

The line has been studied by transit planners from many other cities. “We consider it the granddaddy” of the five busways now operating, or planned, in Houston, said Chuck Fuhs of the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority.

But John Dyer, general manager of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, said his agency has no immediate plans for additional busways.

A Matter of Need

A busway can handle no more than 50,000 to 70,000 riders a day and the need is much greater than that in the Wilshire Corridor, Dyer said.

Hence the RTD continues to press for the 18.5-mile, multibillion-dollar Metro Rail subway.

Dyer also said, in a recent interview, that additional busways would deposit more buses in downtown Los Angeles during busy periods than the area’s already congested streets could handle.

“We run 1,400 buses a day through downtown at peak periods now,” he said. “We can’t do much more than that.”

Dyer said the congestion problem could be managed, at least in part, if Los Angeles were to improve its downtown transportation circulation system.

Possibilities include building “transit malls” for bus parking and turning around; requiring motorists to park on the periphery of the business district and take shuttle buses to work or to shop; increasing the number of one-way streets and providing more exclusive bus lanes, like the one on Spring Street.

But, he said, “so far, we haven’t detected any interest” in such measures on the part of the city’s Transportation Department.

RTD planning director Gary S. Spivack said it might be possible to construct a busway some day on the 210 Freeway, between Pomona and Pasadena, but that “overall, busways won’t be much of the answer in Los Angeles.”

Transitway Delay Proposed

The Harbor Transitway, a 20-mile line that is supposed to be built in and above the median for the Harbor Freeway, will not be built until at least 1990 if the California Transportation Commission accepts a recent Caltrans recommendation.

Because less federal money will be available for California highway and transit projects than had been expected, Caltrans has proposed that the Harbor Transitway, estimated to cost $288.5 million, be delayed.

Busways seem to have a brighter future in Orange County, where the Orange County Transit District has just awarded a $1.2-million contract to plan a network of busways.

These will be two-way busways built in, and in some places above, freeway medians, according to Brian Pearson, director of development for the transit district.

Routes being considered include Interstate 5 (the Santa Ana Freeway); Route 55 (the Riverside-Newport Freeway); and Route 57 (the Orange Freeway), Pearson said.