OCTA Seeks to Help Riders as Bus Routes Change : Transit: It’s the first major overhaul of the county system in 25 years. Bilingual ‘ambassadors’ will be available this week to answer passengers’ questions.

At each stop Sunday, bus driver Richard Ohrazea was doing his best to reassure confused riders.

“This is the same as the old 51 line,” said Ohrazea, pulling open the folding front door of his bus, now marked 205. “This goes to Santa Ana, to the Amtrak station.”

At his side was Jorge Duran, a bilingual Orange County Transportation Authority “ambassador” on duty to help explain the route changes, part of the first major overhaul of the county bus system in 25 years.

Starting Sunday, there were new bus numbers, new times, new routes and new drivers in an effort to produce a leaner, more efficient bus system.

The overhaul is expected to save $2.4 million a year, particularly important because of the federal government’s 44% cut in bus subsidies and the possibility that OCTA will need to contribute money to help bail out the bankrupt county.

Despite an extensive public outreach effort in English, Spanish and Vietnamese that included radio and newspaper advertising--plus signs splashed on the sides of the buses and throughout the bus terminals--many of the 50,000 daily riders on the OCTA lines still may be puzzled by the changes.

For Sonia Ambriez, a regular rider whose 45-minute work commute from Westminster to Santa Ana on the 60 and 43 lines will not change, her outing Sunday to visit friends meant a ride--for the first time--on the 205.

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“I saw the new red bus schedules, so I knew there were some changes,” Ambriez, 29, said in Spanish. “But because the drivers don’t speak Spanish, it’s very difficult for the riders to figure out what’s going on.”

Enter Duran, of Garden Grove, one of 65 transportation “ambassadors” who will spend the week riding the buses, handing out literature and, perhaps most important, talking to the riders individually.

“Really, being on the buses is the most effective way of informing people,” said Duran, 34, a UC Irvine-trained transportation analyst. “One thing for sure, on the bus we have a captive audience.”

The changes, which include eliminating four routes and creating eight new “runabout” community routes featuring smaller buses, were the result of an 18-month-long study to improve service on the most frequently used of OCTA’s 73 routes and decrease service on the less often used ones, Duran said.

The new routes have been designed to make the Laguna Hills Transportation Center near Leisure World the county’s first transit hub to offer more tightly coordinated arrival and departure times that are meant to decrease the wait between buses and increase the options for riders.

“Once the riders get used to the changes, we anticipate the patronage to go up,” Duran said. Even before the changes, ridership has grown by 7% over last year.

Another daily rider, Louise Bryant, climbed aboard the 205 on Sunday already primed with information on how to get from her Santa Ana residence to a friend’s home in Irvine. Bryant, 38, a temporary worker whose job site changes regularly, takes advantage of the hot line--636-RIDE--to figure out the best way to get to places.

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“I just call and they will tell you when to pick up a bus and how to get there,” said Bryant, who rides to work by bus about 45 minutes from Santa Ana to Costa Mesa each day. “But lately it takes a little bit longer to get through because everyone is calling.”

As a regular rider, Bryant said she has grown to rely on the bus system. She’s afraid her finances would be affected if many more bus routes are cut to help the county deal with its bankruptcy.

“I guess I’d have to buy another car, but because of the expense of insurance, it would be bad,” Bryant said. “I love riding the bus. I get to read my newspaper and do my puzzle and talk to people.”

The real test of the new system will come this morning, when the ridership hits peak levels with people traveling to work, Ohrazea said.

“At my first stop, you could take five buses and fill them all up,” said Ohrazea, a Santa Ana resident who has been a bus driver for five years. “If I don’t explain to them that this is the old 51 line, people would be confused and they wouldn’t get on. But if we talk to them, they’ll get it.”