OCTD to Spend $20.4 Million to Renew Fleet

The Orange County Transit District will purchase 134 new buses and vans for $20.4 million during the next two years under a revised five-year plan approved Monday by district board members.

The 99 full-size buses and 35 dial-a-ride vans will replace part of the district’s 672-vehicle fleet, transit officials said.

Bus service would be expanded only slightly under the plan adopted Monday.

And, district officials said, they may have to raise fares a nickel a year over the next five years because of falling federal transit subsidies, the need to improve service and the cost of replacing aging buses. The current fare is 75 cents.

The district’s five-year plans are updated annually. A year ago, OCTD board members adopted a similar plan that contained purchases of 32 fewer replacement buses and called for almost no change in service. Officials said more buses are needed to replace some that have “exceeded their normal useful life span.”

Expand Availability

Approved unanimously at the board’s regular Monday meeting at OCTD headquarters in Garden Grove, the updated 1988-1992 plan would expand bus availability by 25,000 hours of service, or about 2.25%, in 1988 and again in 1989. Routes affected have not been identified, OCTD spokeswoman Joanne Curran said.

However, the board recently voted to concentrate service improvements in rapidly developing parts of the county, including Cypress, Irvine and the El Toro-Mission Viejo area.

The district’s five-year plan predicts that ridership will increase by 4.2 million passengers to a total of 37.1 million annually in 1992.

The plan calls for opening a another Commuter Network field office this year near South Coast Plaza. The first field office was opened last year in Newport Center. Commuter Network operates OCTD’s ride-sharing and transportation-management efforts, such as attempts to relieve traffic congestion by persuading major employers to stagger work hours.

Dial-a-ride, which provides neighborhood trips through phone reservations, is expected to increase its service hours by 4.9% in 1988 and then 2.3% in both 1989 and 1990, officials said. The district purchases dial-a-ride vans and leases them to privately owned companies under contract to provide the neighborhood service.

Previously, the board approved plans to spend $160 million during the next few years developing a transit-way--car-pool and bus lanes separated from other traffic with a barrier--on the Santa Ana Freeway.