Valley Needs a Balance of Transit Modes, MTA Official Says

The future of transportation in the San Fernando Valley has been on the minds of many lately, including transportation planners. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority currently operates most bus services in the Valley. And although bus ridership in the Valley has dropped significantly since 1988, many critics are pressing MTA to provide more buses. In the meantime, the MTA is working to bring the Metro Rail Red Line subway to Universal City and North Hollywood by 2000. However, debate continues over which route to accept for a rail line across the Valley. A regionwide agency has operated two Metrolink commuter lines through the Valley. David L. Mieger, the MTA’s rail project manager for the Valley, discussed the future of Valley transportation with staff writer Hugo Martin.

Question: There’s been a lot of talk about how much bus service is provided in the Valley and whether the routes serve the people adequately. What is being done to get bus service to more people?

Answer: In the Valley right now we have one very important study, which is the San Fernando Valley Bus Restructuring Study. It has been under way for several months now. We will be getting some conclusions in the springtime. It will be taking a comprehensive look at all of the bus lines in the Valley.

One of the interesting things that is starting to come out is the debate over the existing arterial grid system that we have in the Valley. Basically the buses run north-south and east-west on the major streets. So to get from any X, Y or Z coordinate in the Valley to another one, you have to transfer.

One of the things the study is looking at is going to the more pulsed transfer-type system. What that means is that you would have a star configuration or a wheel with spokes where you would have some major transfer points in the Valley, and the buses would generally come into these nodes and then go to other nodes. So you would identify major activity centers, major park-and-ride lots, major employment centers, and those would become your bus transfer points. You would generally run the buses from point to point in the Valley rather than on a grid system.

Q. Will the study look at how to adjust the routes to take into consideration the population and employment changes that have taken place in the Valley?

A. We’ve got some new information from the 1990 census which shows that demographically the Valley is changing pretty dramatically. One of the first things we see is that the Valley is no longer a white, suburban, middle-class community.

I think the stereotype 10 years ago of the Valley as a suburban bedroom community was closer to being true. At that time there was much more housing than jobs, and so it was more of a traditional suburban environment. Now, as the number of jobs (has) increased in the Valley, it’s much more closer to being balanced.

Employment centers are developing in Universal City, Warner Center, downtown Burbank, downtown Glendale, and we are getting people commuting into the Valley to go to these employment centers. We are also seeing that in terms of economics there is an in-migration of poorer people, particularly in the northeast Valley who by and large . . . have to rely on public transit to get around.

Q. It must be a big concern that once you have this system on line that the average person won’t know how to use it.

A. We’ve looked at the possibility of having information display terminals at each rail station that would show all the bus routes into that station. You would push a button for where you are and where you want to go, and the computer would give you the quickest possible route. In our lobby there is a TV terminal that shows congestion on the freeways. That’s information we get directly from Caltrans, and we can get that kind of terminal in major employment centers or into rail transit centers or major park-and-ride lots where people might be able to take a look at it and see where the congestion is and maybe replan their routes based on that information. So I think there are a lot of opportunities.

Q. Critics say you should spend more on bus service because it’s more economical than rail? What is MTA’s response to that criticism?

A: I think that, from my staff prospective, we need a balance. The one thing about buses is that when you are in an area where traffic is congested and it isn’t moving during rush hour, you can’t get more buses through. When the traffic stops, the buses stop also. The advantage of a rail system is that you generally have grade separation and you are able to keep moving when everything else is stopped.

In terms of long-range planning, we have always tried to emphasize that we need to have a balance of all modes: rail, bus and transportation demand management, or TDM, which is basically getting more people in cars and raising the number of occupants per vehicle.

Q. In the near future, is the Valley expected to get more bus lines?

A. We have increased bus service on the 25 most-congested corridors, and that includes some in the Valley. There has been some additional money for bus security which has been brought to the Valley.

Q. With all these changes, do you and MTA feel you are meeting the demands for public transit at this point? Are budget constraints still putting your goals out of reach?

A. Well, our plan to spend over $183 billion over 30 years was an effort to maintain and slightly improve the status quo for transportation. Of course, we have less than that to spend because of the recession, and we are having to spend it for more things. I’d say there is greater demand than there is supply right now, and we are going to have to shepherd our resources very carefully to accommodate as much of that demand as we can.

Q. What is the MTA’s ultimate goal for improving transportation in the Valley?

A. I think what we are looking at . . . four different approaches: rail, bus, TDM, and highways and streets.

. . . In terms of highways, our goal is to get high-occupancy vehicle or car-pool lanes on every freeway because they allow cars to keep moving in rush hour periods when the rest of the freeway shuts down. We are currently working with Caltrans for car-pool lanes on the Antelope Valley Freeway and the Simi Valley Freeway and parts of the Hollywood and Golden State freeways and also on the San Diego Freeway north of the Ventura Freeway.

In terms of rail, we want to accommodate the long distance commuter--the people coming from Ventura and Santa Clarita--through the Metrolink system. The second level of rail is urban rail system, and that is our Red Line, Blue Line, Green Line system. We want to open up our Red Line system to the Valley at Universal City and North Hollywood and connect that to an east-west rail line that travels through the most heavily congested corridor, which is the Ventura Freeway corridor from Universal City to Warner Center.

With the bus system, we certainly want to restructure the bus system in the Valley so that it can serve the areas that aren’t served by rail.

Transportation demand management is the fourth component. That is giving incentives for people to van pool, car pool and travel during off-peak periods through changes in their work hours. Although it has the least capital expense, it has the potential to do as much or more as the other three combined.