OCTD Adds Service Here, Cuts It There

Some Orange County residents will benefit from increased bus service in February, while others will see a reduction in service under plans approved Monday by the Orange County Transit District.

For example, OCTD Line 56A between Santa Ana and Garden Grove will be extended on weekdays to include service to Cypress College and the Amtrak station in the Santa Ana Transportation Center, district board members decided.

A new route, Line 92, will run between the Laguna Hills Mall and La Paz Road in Mission Viejo, with a stop at Mission Viejo High School.

Commute-hour trips will also be added on Line 85A between Santa Ana and Laguna Hills to provide added two-way service through the Irvine Spectrum business complex, with elimination of some stops between Newhope Street and McFadden Avenue in Santa Ana and the Santa Ana Transportation Terminal.

However, some underused service will be discontinued.

Weekend bus service in San Clemente will be reduced from half-hour to hour intervals. Line 158 service between Santa Ana and Costa Mesa via Harbor Boulevard will be discontinued.

And weekday service on Line 80 will be eliminated between the Santa Ana Transportation Center and the Santa Ana Transit Terminal, with service intervals to increase along the rest of the line from 50 minutes to 65 minutes.

In Costa Mesa, weekday service on Line 59/59A south of MacArthur Boulevard and Bristol Street will be rerouted along Bristol to Sunflower and Avenue of the Arts, where there will be a “layover” zone serving the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Service between Orange and Costa Mesa on Line 45 via Fairview Road will be rerouted during peak weekday travel periods to Pomona Avenue between 18th and 19th streets in Costa Mesa, and to Placentia Avenue between 17th and 18th streets.

Two other proposed changes were withdrawn pending a study of complaints from John Castro, owner of a Santa Ana-based employment service that supplies housekeepers to clients. Castro said 500 of his employees have trouble getting to jobs in the Mission Viejo area because there is no direct route between Santa Ana and the Mission Viejo area.

One of the route changes adopted Monday serves Mission Viejo, but Santa Ana bus riders would first have to transfer at the Laguna Hills Mall.