VISTA Views

Buses in the morning. Buses in the evening. Buses at supper time.

A Ventura County Transportation Commission survey, conducted over two weeks in November and December, shows many east county riders of the cross-county bus system VISTA want more buses on Saturday. West county riders want more buses in the afternoon. Freeway riders want more buses all the time. And riders countywide want more buses at night.

The 5-year-old VISTA, which carries riders between local city bus systems and into Los Angeles, has four routes crisscrossing the county and two dial-a-ride services.

The most-used route, which carries about 100,000 passengers a year along California 126 between Fillmore, Santa Paula and Ventura, often leaves people standing at the bus stop in the afternoon because of overcrowding, said Ginger Gherardi, executive director of the Transportation Commission.

“I’ve had staff out surveying the riders again, asking them if we ran a bus at noon and at 2 p.m. would they take that,” Gherardi said. “And it looks like they would.”

She said the commission will consider additional service.

Currently, the bus stops at Pacific View Mall in Ventura every hour except noon, 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Most of the riders take the bus to and from home, work or school, Gherardi said.

On that line, about 43% of passengers said they want service later in the evening, according to the annual survey. This is a dramatic increase over the 6% that wanted later service last year, Gherardi said.

About 63% of these passengers have an annual household income of less than $20,000.

Other survey findings: 45% of riders on the east county line, with nearly 40,000 passengers annually traveling between Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Westlake Village and Moorpark, would like Saturday service.

“That is a fairly high percentage and a gap in our system,” Gherardi said, noting that the other lines have Saturday service. She said the commission would probably recommend adding that service. Any additions would not take place until July, Gherardi said.

About the same percentage also asked for service later than 5 p.m. The majority of riders would use it to go from work or school, the survey said.

About 30% of east county bus riders reported an annual income of less than $15,000.

On the Ventura Freeway route, which has close to 80,000 riders each year traveling between Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo and Thousand Oaks, 36% of riders said they would like later bus service.

Riders on this line also said they would like a higher frequency of buses at all times.

Gherardi said the commission would likely consider the freeway riders’ request.

About half the passengers on this line listed an annual household income of less than $20,000.

On the Conejo Connection line, which carries passengers between Oxnard, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks and Warner Center in Woodland Hills, about 13% of the riders are using the bus as a “reverse commute” service, taking the bus from homes in Los Angeles County to jobs in Ventura County.

About half the Conejo Connection riders said they want later evening service, mostly to get home from work.

More than half the bus riders reported an annual household income of $40,000 or more.

On all the lines, 70 to 90% of riders said they are dependent on public transportation as their main source of transit.

“That makes this a very important service because we provide them an option,” Gherardi said. “If you don’t have a car and you have a job, how do you go?”