Bus Riders Hail OCTD’s Frequent Service Program : Transportation: Customers on main routes can expect buses every 15 minutes instead of the usual 20 to 30 minutes during peak morning and afternoon hours.

The bad news for Steve Giguere of Garden Grove at 5:35 p.m. Monday was something he was used to. The bus he was waiting to catch on Harbor Boulevard at McFadden Avenue was full. He would have to wait for the next one.

But the good news was that he only had to wait 15 minutes. In the past, he would have waited 20 minutes to half an hour, he said.

“Great,” said Giguere when told of the Orange County Transit District’s recent decision to increase bus service. “Sounds like somebody had a good idea for a change.”

Sure enough, it was about 15 minutes after the first bus that Giguere caught the next one, which had plenty of seats.

Responding to rider complaints about slow service during peak hours, OCTD last week started a new program--called Frequent Service Transit Routes--aimed at guaranteeing a bus every 15 minutes during weekday peak hours along seven major routes.

The peak hours are from 6 to 9 a.m. and from 3 to 6 p.m. The major routes are:

* Line 43, Fullerton to Newport Beach via Harbor Boulevard.

* Line 53, Orange to Balboa, via Main and Baker streets and Orange Avenue.

* Line 57, Santa Ana to Laguna Hills, via Bristol Street.

* Line 60, Tustin to Long Beach, via 17th Street and Westminster Boulevard.

* Line 64, Santa Ana to Seal Beach, via 1st Street and Bolsa Avenue.

* Line 70, Santa Ana to Sunset Beach, via Edinger Avenue.

* Line 85, Santa Ana to Laguna Hills, via Santa Ana Boulevard, Red Hill Avenue and Crown Valley Parkway.

Some sections of these routes have always had buses every 15 minutes; a few places in the county have buses every six to 12 minutes. But some waiting periods on even the major lines had been up to as much as half an hour in the past.

“One complaint we occasionally hear is that our buses don’t run frequently enough, and people can’t rely on them to get to work or to school on time,” said OCTD General Manager James P. Reichert. “This program will answer that. . . . It’s getting really busy out there.”

The only way to get more buses on major lines--without raising the standard 90-cent fare--is to get the buses from somewhere else.

Joanne Curran, OCTD spokeswoman, said it took some readjusting.

“On some of the less frequently used routes, we’ve had to increase the waiting period from 20 minutes to half an hour,” she said.

But officials only did that on lines on which the rider traffic was slow anyway, she said.

People standing at bus stops along Harbor Boulevard Monday evening applauded OCTD’s decision.

“When you do all your traveling by bus, that’s a considerable improvement,” said Lanier White, waiting on the southbound bus at La Palma Avenue with his girlfriend and their 2-year-old daughter. They had been at the welfare office in Fullerton picking up a check and would transfer buses at Harbor Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue.

White, 27, said he noticed immediately the quicker bus service along Harbor when it began last week but did not realize it was because of a specific change in schedules.

“When you travel every day on the bus, you get so those timetables are implanted in your mind,” he said. “I knew something was going on. I didn’t know what it was; I was just happy how soon that bus seemed to be showing up.”

Another appreciative rider was Debbie Deardorf, 35, a teacher at a day school, who said taking the bus makes it difficult to always get to work on time.

“But if you can catch a bus every 15 minutes, you really don’t have a reason to be late,” she said.

For a few, however, the only thing that matters is when a bus, any bus, finally does show up.

Debbie and Donnie Crain, a homeless pair traveling cross-country from Florida, were waiting at a southbound bus stop at North Street along Harbor Boulevard in Anaheim Monday evening. They had no place to spend the night. They were hoping the bus driver could tell them how to get to Long Beach. They’d heard someone there might help them.

“Faster bus service? Sounds good; I’m all for it,” Donnie Crain said. “Always good to know someone cares about people who have to ride the bus.”