Questions and Answers About Your Commute : Why Do MTA Buses Look So Great?

Dear Traffic Talk:

Our sleek, new MTA buses look great. No graffiti, no scarred windows. How come?

Sam Bensussen

Sherman Oaks

Dear Sam:

The buses look good because they are new. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is in the middle of replacing many of its old buses with a more modern, compressed natural gas model, according to Ed Scannell, a spokesman for the agency.

One feature on these buses is a plastic screen placed over the windows that protects the glass from would-be scratchers, he said. Scratched-up screens are regularly replaced, Scannell said.

The agency ordered 294 new buses a few years ago, Scannell said, of which 100 are now in operation with an additional 60 on loan to Atlanta for use during the Olympics.

By April 1997 all the buses--which have been trickling into Los Angeles in groups of threes or fours as they come off the assembly line--should be here, he said.

Scannell said the city has also just approved an additional order of 250 more of these environmentally friendly vehicles, which should begin to arrive in Los Angeles by the end of next year. They should all be here by the end of 1998, when the city is expected to have a total of 544 new buses in operation, Scannell said.

The majority of these cleaner fuel-burning vehicles will run in the San Fernando Valley because the air pollution problem here is worse than in other parts of the city, he said.

Dear Traffic Talk:

If you exit on the westbound Ventura Freeway at White Oak Avenue during most of the morning hours, the southernmost of the two left-turn lanes--and sometimes both--are unable to turn south because southbound White Oak vehicles turning left onto the freeway eastbound block the intersection.

The signal just north of the offramp releases them to the signal just south of the freeway bridge and always one or two more vehicles than will fit between the two signals try to jam in and consequently block vehicles exiting west off the freeway.

Please advise.

Edward Ticktin

Encino

Dear Edward:

There’s not an easy solution to this traffic jam, according to Brian Gallagher, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.

Engineers inspecting the two lights found them to be working in sync, he said.

The simplest solution would be for the extra one or two cars that try to fit in--when there is no space for them between the two lights--to remain north of the first light even if the signal is green until space is made, Gallagher said.

This would keep the intersection clear for the traffic exiting the freeway and coming to a green light.

As for for the heavy traffic that does fill the space between the two lights: That traffic is the backup from the eastbound freeway onramp.

The cars back up because there isn’t enough storage room on the ramp for the cars being held up by the meter.

The solution to that would be to turn off the meter, Gallagher said. But that light is also necessary to control the traffic coming onto the freeway.

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