Shuttles, Dial-A-Rides Grow Under Prop. A : Funds Flow, Transit Choices Blossom

Anna Valenzuela, 68, who never learned to drive, spent 23 tiresome years waiting at bus stops to go to her nurse’s aide job at Whittier Presbyterian Hospital.

Now, two years after retirement, the Pico Rivera woman simply makes a phone call to City Hall and for 25 cents a mini-bus picks her up at her doorstep and takes her shopping anywhere in the city.

Paz Ramirez, Valenzuela’s 90-year-old mother, can use the same service for medical appointments outside the city.

Valenzuela’s nephew, Edward Smith, 23, who is in a wheelchair, is also taken to and from home in Pico Rivera five days a week to his classes at Rio Hondo College near Whittier. He pays the same price, 25 cents each way.

“This is a blessing, not having to wait in the rain for a bus or paying cab fare to get around. I thank the Lord,” Valenzuela said.

The three generations who live together in the Valenzuela home are among thousands of county residents benefiting from a growing array of transit programs made possible by an influx of voter-approved transportation revenue.

Take Paramount resident Bill Jenkins, for instance. He calls the city’s dial-a-ride program, a shuttle picks him up in front of his mobile home park and deposits him six blocks away, allowing him to catch a Long Beach Transit bus, then an RTD bus to his sales job at a South Gate clothing store.

‘Used a Lot of Shoe Leather’

“I used a lot of shoe leather walking,” said Jenkins, 31, before the Paramount neighborhood shuttle started Nov. 2.

The money for these and similar programs in other area cities is available because of Proposition A, the half-cent county sales tax for transit projects that took effect three years ago.

Pico Rivera, which operates three buses seven days a week for its elderly and handicapped residents, has nearly $2 million in mass transit funds available. In three years, it has spent about $728,000 on transportation-related services.

Paramount recently bought three new buses for an estimated $100,000, bringing its fleet to five and creating a combination dial-a-ride and a route-bus service available to the city’s 40,000 residents.

“This is the coming thing. All of the cities” will have some form of mass transit, said Lynda Patrick, field supervisor for Community Transit Services Inc. of Lakewood, which operates the Paramount system. “It is very popular.”

Of the Proposition A funds, about 25%, known as local return money, is divided among the cities and county areas on a population basis; 35% goes toward building a light rail transit system and 40% subsidizes city-operated bus systems, such as Long Beach Transit, the Southern California Rapid Transit District, Norwalk Transit and Montebello Municipal Bus Line, said Kristine Hill, a program analyst for the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. The commission was established to oversee all transit-related projects financed through Proposition A.

Since 1982, the commission has allocated more than $255 million in local return money to the cities and county areas. Twenty-four Southeast cities, including Long Beach, have received more than $46 million of that money.

Long Beach Mall Transit

Because it is the largest of the cities, Long Beach, with more than 370,000 residents, has received more than $12 million, according to Transportation Commission data.

The majority of the money has been spent on the city’s downtown mall transit project, which includes bus lanes for the Long Beach Transit system, bus shelters and a tram for shoppers, said Ray Rockoff, accountant for the city’s department of financial management.

Long Beach Transit, which has 180 buses and serves an estimated 24 million passengers annually, this year received an additional $5.5 million in what the commission calls discretionary funds given to city-run bus systems.

Signal Hill, with the area’s smallest population, 7,300, has received $229,938 of the local money. The city contracts with Long Beach Transit for dial-a-ride service for the handicapped and elderly. It has spent $118,710.

In contrast, Cerritos has spent only about $16,000 from a $1.77-million transit chest. The money went to Long Beach Transit, which runs through Cerritos, said Michele Ogle, spokeswoman for Cerritos. Cerritos is moving slowly in committing its funds, Ogle said. It still has no plan for spending the Proposition A money.

Funds unused after four years are returned to the commission, but “we encourage them to use them and it hasn’t been a problem,” said analyst Hill.

In the past three years, most Southeast cities have pursued some kind of transit project, although some have been more aggressive and creative than others.

Rides for Drunks

There are dial-a-rides and wave-a-rides. There are transportation programs for the elderly and handicapped. There are even plans in South Gate to use the transit money to give drunks a taxi ride home from bars.

To catch the public’s imagination, city councils and transit boards have been busy tagging their new programs with catchy names.

In Bellflower each of the four 18-passenger buses that make 117 stops along a route Monday through Saturday is called The Bus.

The name was given by the Bellflower Public Advisory Transit Committee, appointed by the City Council. Some on the seven-member panel preferred naming the line The BAT, or Bellflower Area Transit, but that idea was voted down.

Passengers pay 25 cents, but children under 10, when accompanied by adults, ride for free. Riders also can buy transfers for 10 cents to other bus lines such as the RTD.

Bellflower, like many of the cities, hired an outside firm to operate its system at a cost of about $370,000 a year. DAVE Systems of Santa Ana, which operates several route and dial-a-ride systems throughout the state, runs The Bus.

DART Transit

In Lakewood, DASH--the Dependable, Accessible, Senior and Handicapped transportation system--is run by the city. There is no charge, but they must call a day ahead to reserve a ride.

In Bell Gardens, riders can board the red-and-white DART or Dial-A-Ride Transit for 25 cents. The city started its program in 1984 with two buses--for the general public, and elderly and handicapped--but an increase in passengers caused it to add a third bus this year, said Don Bader, transportation supervisor.

In the beginning, the 22-passenger buses carried about 4,700 riders a month, but that figure had almost doubled by October, Bader said.

Like Bell Gardens, the majority of the cities report steady or increasing ridership figures.

Cudahy, for example, is typical of many of the smaller cities that report between 1,000 and 2,000 monthly passengers for its route and phone-a-ride services. The Cudahy bus starts its route at City Hall and travels along every street of the 1.2-square-mile community Monday through Friday.

“People can call in and let the driver know where they will be standing or they can simply flag the driver down,” said Carol Merritt, executive assistant.

Lack of Riders in Maywood

Maywood is the only city that started a route and had to drop it because of a lack of riders. The city of 22,000 tried to run the route for nearly five months. During September, there were four riders. The route was discontinued in October.

Maywood is now putting all of its efforts into a six-day-a-week dial-a-ride service--Monday through Friday with a Sunday run allowing residents to be picked up at home and taken to religious services. Several other cities also provide that service Sundays.

Norwalk, which reports a healthy ridership for its bus service overall, will discontinue its line to Los Angeles International Airport, which has run since 1975.

However, the popular Hustle Bus, a fleet of 26, carrying roughly a million passengers a year, will continue in the city as it has for more than 21 years. But instead of using general revenues to run the bus line, Norwalk now funds the service with Proposition A funds.

“We have thought about a name change from time to time. But we get so many letters in support of it, we wouldn’t dare. You can’t mess with a winner,” said Roger Mommaerts, director of transportation.

Improvement, Expansion

Many of the cities have taken the Proposition A money to improve or expand existing dial-a-ride services for the handicapped and elderly. Many have extended the dial-a-ride service to all residents.

Prices range from no cost to $1. The prevailing price apparently is 25 cents one way. However, the Transportation Commission requires that all of the profits be plowed back into the operation.

Some cities have used a small part of the money to provide transportation for residents, especially the elderly and young, for recreational and cultural trips within the county, such as to the County Museum of Art and Marineland.

Other cities, such as Pico Rivera, South Gate, Maywood, Lynwood and Commerce, have used a portion of their funds to subsidize or offset the increased fares imposed by the RTD on July 1. Pico Rivera, for instance, allocated $22,000 to reduce the cost of monthly passes. The subsidies allow RTD fares to remain at the old rates and save purchasers of the passes from $4 to $12 a month.

Some cities, like South Gate, have sold some of their Proposition A funds to other cities. This is permitted under Transportation Commission rules, which allow a city to sell the money for about 65 cents on the dollar for general revenue funds from another city. The city that buys the transit funds must use them for transit projects.

Over three years, South Gate has sold Torrance more than $500,000 in transit money in exchange for an estimated $347,000 in general revenue.

With all of the Proposition A revenue available, most cities are continuing to evaluate their transit services with an eye toward expansion or improvement.

Downey, which provides service only to people over 60 and the handicapped, is planning a survey to determine if residents are interested in a larger transit system, said Alta Duke, manager of the social services division.

And how does the RTD, which has about 2,200 vehicles carrying 500 million passengers a year, view the upstart systems?

“We don’t see the bus systems springing up as being in competition with RTD. The RTD reviews all proposals to see if there is any major duplication and, if so, the company has the right to protest and raise concern” with the Transportation Commission,” said Gary Spivack, RTD director of planning.

“These are local lines. They are supplemental. Many have transfer agreements with RTD. I don’t see any real problem,” Spivack said.

PUBLIC TRANSIT SPENDING

Thousands of county residents benefit from transit programs funded by money from Proposition A, the half-cent county sales tax for transit projects that took effect in 1982. Since then, 24 Southeast cities, including Long Beach, have received more than $46 million. Here is a breakdown of spending by community from 1982--1986.

Funds Funds Routed City Received Committed Buses Long Beach $12,556,258 $12,233,337 self-operated Norwalk 3,105,010 3,803,112 self-operated Compton 2,797,007 1,281,316 none Downey 2,693,809 1,117,076 none Lakewood 2,415,240 1,190,335 none South Gate 2,367,897 2,126,375 none Whittier 2,266,247 1,070,220 contracted Pico Rivera 1,816,894 727,830 contracted Montebello 1,808,023 1,300,813 self-operated Bellflower 1,807,421 971,141 contracted Cerritos 1,779,302 15,832 none Huntington Park 1,582,435 1,446,857 none Lynwood 1,662,114 1,087,149 none La Mirada 1,325,561 642,341 none Paramount 1,269,997 917,742 contracted Bell Gardens 1,165,025 1,293,764 contracted Bell 866,981 603,445 none Maywood 750,224 542,310 none Cudahy 612,741 230,042 self-operated Commerce 534,639 986,086 self-operated Santa Fe Spr. 477,840 470,866 contracted Artesia 466,276 466,276 none Haw. Gardens 362,620 200,718 none Signal Hill 229,938 118,710 none

Dial City Ride Long Beach contracted Norwalk self-operated Compton self-operated Downey self-operated Lakewood self-operated South Gate contracted Whittier contracted Pico Rivera contracted Montebello self-operated Bellflower contracted Cerritos none Huntington Park contracted Lynwood self-operated La Mirada contracted Paramount contracted Bell Gardens contracted Bell self-operated Maywood contracted Cudahy self-operated Commerce none Santa Fe Spr. self-operated Artesia none Haw. Gardens self-operated Signal Hill contracted

Data is from the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission