Moving Ahead on Transit Hubs

Talk about improving bus service in the San Fernando Valley too often means just that--talk. Supporters of a separate Valley bus system tout hypothetical efficiencies, but the ongoing debate results in little agreement and provides no immediate relief for bus riders.

So it’s encouraging to see action for a change, concrete steps that should actually make the bus system we now have work better.

One such step is a six-month rapid demonstration project the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is launching on Ventura Boulevard between Lankershim and Topanga Canyon boulevards, beginning in late spring or early summer. Buses will operate more frequently and will shorten travel time by making fewer stops and by using devices that extend green lights.

And the Los Angeles City Council last week gave the go-ahead--and approved the funding--for a transit hub at Warner Center. The MTA will provide about $2 million to build the $4-million hub, with nearly $1 million in federal funds and the rest from local developers. The hub will be built along Owensmouth Avenue between Oxnard and Erwin streets.

Transportation planners envision a tree-shaded avenue lined with bus shelters, coffee shops and newspaper stands that cater to commuters. The Warner Center Transit Hub would be the focal point of a regional bus system, with buses fanning out like spokes on a wheel rather than following a torturously slow grid pattern across the Valley.

Of course, planners have envisioned this for six years; the project was first broached as part of the Warner Center Specific Plan. That it’s taken this long to build (and it’s not built yet) only fuels calls for a breakaway bus district. The City Council should do everything it can to keep the project on track.

And it shouldn’t stop there. Warner Center, with its 40,000 workers, is a choice location for a transit hub. Only 3% of Warner Center’s commuters now take the bus. If the hub makes possible shorter commutes and fewer transfers, as it’s designed to, then buses could lure more commuters out of their cars, which in turn would ease congestion on the Ventura Freeway and on surface streets.

But what about other areas where bus ridership is much higher--and bus service inadequate? Better, safer, faster bus service is long overdue for residents who already depend on (often undependable) public transportation. The Valley needs other transit hubs and additional rapid transportation projects, and not six years from now, but now.

These are the kind of practical, affordable--and immediate--transportation solutions the city can and must deliver.