New Transit Services Planned for Bus Riders, Shoppers, Drinkers

Three new transportation programs--one for bus riders, one for holiday shoppers and another for those who have had too much to drink--have been announced by the city.

Monthly RTD bus passes are being offered for $20, which is $12 less than the current nondiscounted rate for regular fares. Special discounts also are available to senior citizens, the handicapped, and college and vocational students, said Karen Bell, associate planner for the Community Development Department.

The discounted passes, available only to South Gate residents, are sold at the Sports Center at South Gate Recreational Park at Tweedy Boulevard and Hildreth Avenue, and only from the 25th of one month to the 10th of the next. Hours are from noon to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Bell said that the city’s Holiday Shopper Shuttle will begin operating Nov. 29. It will run from the Senior Citizens Center at South Gate Recreational Park at Walnut Avenue and Tweedy Boulevard, to Long Beach Boulevard, picking up shoppers and transporting them at no cost all along Tweedy Mile. The shuttle will use the regular RTD bus stops, with one extra stop at the senior citizens housing complex at Pennsylvania Square, via Monroe Avenue, Bell said.

The free shuttle service, first offered during the 1983 Christmas season, will run at 30-minute intervals from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday though Christmas Eve, Bell said.

Also part of the transportation program for South Gate residents will be a taxi service for drivers too inebriated to get home safely. An extension of the existing phone-a-ride service offered by the city, the new service will operate in the evenings and on Sundays, when phone-a-ride is discontinued, Bell said.

Police will sell bar owners tickets at $1 each. Bar owners may charge their customers the price of the tickets or provide the service as a complimentary one, at their discretion, Bell said. The tickets are to be given to taxi drivers they call to take customers home. The city will reimburse the taxicab company used in the program, Day & Nite Yellow Cab Co., $3 for each ride.

The city hopes to have the tippler taxi ticket plan in effect no later than Jan. 1, Bell said.

All three programs are being funded with Proposition A money that the city receives from the county’s special half-cent sales tax for transportation programs, Bell said.