Due for an Overhaul : Bus System Needs Fix, But Analysts Don’t Have Exact Change--Yet

Anyone who rides Orange County buses knows it’s not always easy to get from here to there.

The reason for that has been the subject of a months-long study by analysts for the Orange County Transportation Authority. On Monday, they told the transportation board that the bus system must be overhauled.

Exactly how bus service will change isn’t clear yet, but one thing is certain: the Orange County bus system in the year 2000 won’t look like it does today.

Months ago, the analysts handed out surveys at bus stops and held focus groups in an attempt to learn how to attract reluctant riders and keep regular users satisfied.

If people surveyed get their way, the analysts said Monday, bus transfers will be simplified. Shorter routes through communities will be created. More buses will run on weekends and evenings. And south Orange County and the foothill communities will have more routes.

OCTA board members said they hope such steps will boost ridership, which has fallen 10% in the past three years. Officials especially are alarmed by the decline in “discretionary” riders, people who choose to take the bus to work or on errands even though they have a car. That number has decreased from 10,000 riders per day in 1980 to 4,000 riders now.

“The bus system was set up in the 1970s,” said OCTA analyst Mike Greenwood, who is coordinating the $250,000 improvement project, which OCTA hopes to implement next year. “It’s been modified slightly here and there, but the system is basically the same way it was. Orange County has grown a lot since then, so we want the system to address the needs of all the commuters.”

The Orange County bus system had not been evaluated as a whole since 1981. Since 1984, the county’s population has grown by 24%, and new housing developments, especially in South County, have multiplied.

Between now and September, analysts will identify specific routes that should be changed or added to the system. That may mean replacing some low-producing routes with small buses, introducing new routes in the foothill communities of both South and North County, and restructuring routes to create high-frequency, fast bus routes in corridors of high employment.

Riders on Orange County buses Monday afternoon expressed both optimism and reservations about the possible changes, and they welcomed the idea of expanded bus service in south Orange County.

“It would be nice to have access to more places,” said Carl Martin, a 19-year-old Cal State Fullerton student who lives in Costa Mesa.

He said he never uses OCTA buses to visit relatives in Mission Viejo because the trip would involve taking several buses.

“I don’t want to spend the whole day transferring from one bus to another,” Martin said. “I’d rather get a ride.”

But Lupe Cruz, 58, of Santa Ana said she is “worried sick” that OCTA might terminate service on some slower routes or reduce the number of trips per day in her neighborhood.

“Sometimes I get on the bus and I’m the only one on board,” she said. “I wonder how they make money off that.”

Maria Ramirez, 42, who has used the Bristol Street line to get from her Santa Ana home to her job as a computer technician in Costa Mesa for six years, said that overall, “It’s a good system. I hope they don’t mess it up. I rely on this. I can’t afford a car.”

Times correspondent Shelby Grad contributed to this report.