Help Is on Way for Troubled Bus Line

High crime on an RTD bus route along Vermont Avenue prompted the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last week to approve a pilot program that increases police presence and the number of buses on the busy 204 Line.

Citing an Oct. 25 story in View on the line’s high incidence of crime, Supervisor Kenneth Hahn asked Southern California Rapid Transit District officials to study problems of Route 204, which runs from Hollywood to Manchester boulevards.

In addition, for 90 days uniformed officers will ride buses from 5 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. to reduce tension on the line.

“Our plan is to put one officer on each bus for at least 20 minutes every hour, seven days a week, to see if we can have an effect on the crime,” says RTD spokesman Rick Jagger.

Conceding that passenger overcrowding is also a problem, officials plan to add four buses during peak morning hours and six during the evening rush. RTD cost-cutting last spring claimed a pair of buses in the morning and four in the afternoon.

The program, which could begin by mid-November, would cost an estimated $1.4 million.