ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : A Common-Sense Approach to Safety

At a time when every sensible transportation policy in Southern California is aimed at getting people to consider alternatives to the automobile, the California Highway Patrol has been ordering passengers off buses in Orange County.

The people being ordered to cool their heels by the side of the road until another bus happens along are largely low-income working folks, traveling long distances from the barrios of Santa Ana to construction and service-industry jobs in the upper-middle-class communities of Dana Point and San Clemente.

The reason given by the CHP is that there is a safety problem posed by overcrowding abroad buses on the Orange County Transit District’s southbound Route 85, which runs from the Santa Ana Civic Center to South County. But there is great discretion given CHP officers, who eyeball passing buses and determine whether to pull them over. Safety is a real issue, of course, but remedies ought to be tempered with flexibility and an eye toward helping the region meet transportation objectives.

One CHP officer recently went so far as to pull a bus over at Sand Canyon Avenue, off the freeway in Irvine, and weigh the axles with a portable scale. Seven of 68 riders were ordered off to wait for another bus. Weight on the axles was determined to exceed state code, which for two-axle buses is a maximum of 20,500 pounds per axle.

It’s possible for buses to meet federal specifications yet fall short of state regulations when carrying standing passengers. With people coming and going over the 39.5-mile journey of Route 85, a particular vehicle may at any point en route either exceed or fall under the weight limit, depending on how many people get on and off the bus.

Last week, the CHP ordered the transit district to begin taking more accurate head counts of passengers. The transit district has agreed to test-load several buses to determine how many passengers can safely board within code limits; this is a start. The district is also putting more buses on busy rush-hour runs. But the problem also merits review from the state Department of Transportation, which sets the state standards and could well find itself confronted with a number of cities or transit districts with the same problem.

For now, so that a bus won’t have to be weighed each time a passenger gets on or off, the Highway Patrol ought to slow down.