Major Overhaul of Bus Routes Being Scheduled : Transportation: Proposed changes would cut or alter some lines, add service for South County. Hearing set for Monday.

Elderly residents of Casta del Sol in Mission Viejo who don’t drive have been stranded since the Dial-A-Ride bus service came to a halt in December. Housekeepers at the Dana Point Resort who live in Santa Ana complain they have great difficulty reaching their jobs by bus on weekends.

Both of these groups of bus-dependent people, and others, are expected to benefit from a proposed overhaul of Orange County’s bus system that would go into operation in October, affecting the lives of about 47,500 daily bus passengers.

Far-ranging changes--which would affect 47 of the existing 67 bus routes--represent the first comprehensive update of the county’s public transit system since it was founded in 1972, said officials of the Orange County Transportation Authority, which operates the county’s buses.

The proposal, which OCTA officials say resulted from more than a year of research, including meetings with city transportation planners and community representatives, will be presented Monday at a public hearing before the 11-member OCTA board of directors. The OCTA staff may then make adjustments in the plan before the OCTA board meets to vote on it July 10.

“Orange County has grown tremendously in the last 23 years, and we are realizing the system of the 1970s isn’t meeting the demands of the 1990s,” said Mike Greenwood, OCTA’s senior transportation analyst and a drafter of the plan.

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Among the goals of the plan, Greenwood said, is to extend service to newly developed areas of South County such as Foothill Ranch, Lake Forest and the Irvine community of Northwood.

Because of a shift in the county’s demographics, including a burgeoning population of lower-income Latinos, a larger proportion of people who ride the county’s buses today do so because they can’t afford a car. In surveys of passengers, 64% in 1982 said they had no car available to them, compared to 89% in 1994.

So another important objective of the revamped system, Greenwood said, is to tailor bus schedules to meet the demands of this core group of bus riders, especially their desire for more convenient transfers and more frequent service.

However, Greenwood said, plans for improved service had to be scaled back after OCTA learned this spring that it faces a 10% reduction in the bus system’s current $110-million annual operating budget because of funding cuts.

Greenwood said the district next year will lose $2.6 million in annual operating funds from the Federal Transit Administration and $3.2 million because of lower interest earnings. As a result, there will be a 5% reduction in service levels and a 5% reduction in administrative costs, he said.

In the move to economize, OCTA plans to eliminate seven routes that are not attracting sufficient passengers to be cost-effective. The agency also plans to replace traditional 43-passenger buses with 17-passenger buses on less heavily used routes. The county’s small-bus fleet will be expanded from 28 to 56 vehicles.

If the proposed plan is adopted, OCTA estimates, about 400 current riders will discover they are no longer within walking distance of a bus stop and 3,500 more will have to take different routes to reach the same destinations. Another 4,000 riders would gain better service, with the addition of 13 new routes and the restructuring of other routes to make them more convenient.

Not everyone is pleased with the plan. Anaheim officials say they will protest the planned elimination of a bus line that links the Anaheim Stadium Commuter Rail Station to hotels, the civic center and other major employment centers in the city. OCTA officials contend there aren’t enough passengers to justify continuing the service.

John Lower, the city’s traffic and transportation manager, said the loss of this bus service would discourage residents of South County and the San Diego area from riding the train to work in Anaheim. This is upsetting to some of the city’s large employers, including Disneyland and the Anaheim Convention Center, who want more employees to use trains and buses to help them meet regional air quality standards, he said.

Greenwood said he anticipates opposition to several of the proposed route cuts. “Some people will have more service and some less, but overall the routes with the highest ridership will have the same or improved levels of service,” he said.

Among those welcoming the proposed plan are the elderly of Mission Viejo, who would be served by one of eight new “community routes” using small buses to transport passengers to shopping, post offices and other popular destinations within their own communities.

For some bus-dependent residents of Casta del Sol, Mission Viejo’s largest private retirement enclave with 3,500 residents, the new route “will mean access to the outside world,” said Jan Micky Scholte, chairman of the transportation committee of Orange County’s Area Agency on Aging.

Jan Melford, vice president of the Casta del Sol Homeowners Assn., said the closest bus stop now is about a mile from many homes--too far for seniors with arthritic conditions and other health problems to walk. Ever since the December discontinuation of Dial-A-Ride, a door-to-door bus service for the elderly, these people have had difficulty making trips to the market and the doctor, Melford said.

The community bus route in Mission Viejo would have four stops within Casta del Sol and also stop at supermarkets, a post office, the Mission Viejo Mall, Mission Viejo Senior Center, Mission Regional Hospital and Saddleback College.

Another planned community route would serve the youth and elderly of Irvine, with stops at a senior citizens center, UC Irvine, Irvine Valley College and several high schools and apartment complexes.

Also in South County, buses at the Laguna Hills Transportation Center would be rescheduled to arrive within 10 minutes of one another to reduce the time passengers must wait for bus transfers. If the plan works, transit officials say, they intend to duplicate it at other bus hubs in the county.

“A lot of people who don’t ride the bus say it takes forever to go where you want to go. We hope to make it quicker,” Greenwood said.

Bus ridership has declined in recent years due in part to higher unemployment. To counteract that, transit officials welcome new customers, including the affluent who may choose to ride the bus to fight smog and leave their cars at home.

Still, Greenwood said, OCTA is concentrating on improving service for the majority of its riders who are among the lower-income group and reside in central Orange County, which will see most of the bus service improvement.

Greenwood also said OCTA will intensify its marketing to “bus-dependent” riders, particularly in Latino and Vietnamese communities. He noted that while 58% of the county’s bus riders were white in 1982, by 1994 that percentage had declined to 33% and Latino riders had increased from 19% to 50%.

Although only 5% of bus riders surveyed last year were Asian, he said, OCTA planners believe that Vietnamese represent a potentially large market that could be tapped by more vigorous advertising.

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OCTA also recognizes that the central and southern parts of the county cannot exist in isolation, Greenwood said. He observed, for instance, that a large work force residing in Santa Ana’s lower-cost housing needs to reach jobs in south Orange County.

A “main theme” of the renovated bus system, Greenwood said, is to improve route 205 so it will function as “the lifeline between Santa Ana and the South County.” He said that while buses on that express route between Santa Ana and the Laguna Hills Transportation Center currently operate only during peak hours on weekdays, the new schedule will have them running all day, seven days a week, beginning in October.

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New Lineup

Numerous changes in Orange County’s bus service will be presented at a public hearing Monday before the Orange County Transportation Authority. The proposed plan:

Proposed Additions

Route Service Area 20 La Habra to Orange via Imperial Highway 158 Santa Ana to Orange via La Veta Avenue 164 Seal Beach to Westminster via Lampson Avenue 167 Brea to Orange via Kraemer Boulevard 175 UC Irvine to Northwood via Michelson Drive and Yale Ave. 177 Laguna Hills to Foothill Ranch via Lake Forest Dr. 391 Mission Viejo via Marguerite Pkwy. 397 San Clemente via Avenida Pico and El Camino Real 454 Orange Metrolink Station to Irvine 451 Santa Ana Metrolink Station to Irvine 463 Santa Ana Metrolink Station to Irvine 673 Irvine Valley College to El Toro Marine Base via Sand Canyon Road

Proposed Deletions

Route Service Area Alternative Routes 78 San Juan Capistrano to 74, 91, 306, 316 Huntington Beach via Michelson/I-405 161 Huntington Beach to None Westminster via Newland/Trask 309 Rancho Santa Margarita to 93, 188 Irvine via Santa Margarita/Trabuco 328 Fullerton Metrolink Station to 26, 41 east Fullerton 333 Brea to 41, 47, 49, 56 Orange via Raymond/East/Lewis 352 Anaheim Metrolink Station to 43, 47 Disneyland/Anaheim Civic Center 529 La Habra to 29 Huntington Beach via Beach Boulevard

Proposed Restructuring Route: 38 Service Connection: Cerritos-Orange via La Palma Proposed Change: Delete branch to Anaheim Hills *

Route: 42 Service Connection: Seal Beach-Orange via Lincoln Proposed Change: Delete branch through Cypress *

Route: 50 Service Connection: Long Beach-Orange via Katella Proposed Change: Delete branch to Seal Beach *

Route: 53 Service Connection: Orange-Newport Beach via Main Proposed Change: Delete branch along Sunflower St. *

Route: 55 Service Connection: Orange-Costa Mesa via Greenville Proposed Change: Replace north segment with new community route *

Route: 56 Service Connection: Cypress-Santa Ana via Garden Grove Boulevard Proposed Change: Delete branch to Seal Beach; delete segment to Santa Ana Metrolink Stn.; reroute to Main, La Veta, Broadway

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Route: 61 Service Connection: Santa Ana-Newport Beach via Redhill Proposed Change: Delete segment from Irvine to Newport Beach *

Route: 71 Service Connection: Orange-Irvine via Tustin Avenue Proposed Change: Delete branches to South Coast Plaza and UCI *

Route: 75 Service Connection: Santa Ana-Laguna Hills via Walnut Proposed Change: Reroute south segment along Irvine Center/Moulton; replace sections with new community routes *

Route: 85 Service Connection: Santa Ana-San Clemente via I-5 Proposed Change: Delete north section between Santa Ana and Laguna Hills *

Route: 91 Service Connection: Laguna Hills-San Clemente via Marguerite Proposed Change: Delete branch along El Camino Real; replace with new community route *

Route: 205 Service Connection: Santa Ana-San Juan Capistrano via I-5 Proposed Change: Delete south segment between Laguna Hills and San Juan Capistrano, combine with Route 51 *

Route: 308 Service Connection: Irvine-Laguna Hills via Irvine Center Proposed Change: Reroute to north Lake Forest and west Laguna Hills *

Route: 382 Service Connection: Irvine-Costa Mesa via Alton Parkway Proposed Change: Delete west segment between Costa Mesa and Irvine; reroute in IBC *

Bus Ridership

In 1994, about 50,000 people used the Orange County bus system on an average weekday compared to 34,000 people in 1980. A look at 1994 riders:

Ethnicity Latino: 50% White: 33% Black: 7% Asian: 5% Other: 5%

Age 17 and younger: 10% 18-29: 43% 30-49: 35% 50-64: 7% 65 and older: 5%

Household Income

Less than $20,000: 60% $20,000-$29,999: 14% $30,000-$39,999: 9% $40,000-$49,000: 7% $50,000 or more: 10%

Source: Orange County Transportation Authority