At the MTA, PR Machine Rolls Out Along With New Bus Fleet
For brevity, you can’t beat the MTA. First there’s the acronymistic name (short for Metropolitan Transportation Authority), then there’s the information and complaint line ([800]-COMMUTE), and now there’s a brand new ad campaign: “It’s Getting Better on the Bus.”
Clear, concise and, really, the least the agency could do.
This month, 236 brand new billboard ads will appear all over L.A. County, explaining that tagline with messages of equal simplicity: “More New Buses” reads one set, “More Service,” “More Reliability,” “More Security,” read the others, 184 in English, 52 in Spanish. That’s $100,000 worth of billboards, echoing sentiments already expressed on 600 of the city’s 2,200 buses, to announce what MTA spokesman Ed Scannell calls “a recent bus-buying binge.”
According to Scannell, when MTA Chief Executive Julian Burke came aboard in 1997, he took one look at L.A.’s aging bus fleet--the average bus was 9 1/2 years old--shook his head and drew up an “accelerated bus procurement plan.”
It’s an interesting interpretation of a court-ordered increase that came as a result of an unprecedented lawsuit filed by the Bus Riders Union against the MTA six years ago. In fact, the billboard campaign is a direct answer to the concerns of the lawsuit. For years, overcrowding, unreliability, and safety and environmental concerns have plagued the city’s bus line, with many critics decrying the disproportionate amount of money going to the troubled subway projects and rail lines.
Fewer than 200 buses into the spree, the MTA went to court to buy time after a federal judge ordered the purchase of 248 new buses. Pleading financial difficulty, the agency says it is buying buses as fast as it can and has committed to 2,100 new ones by end of 2004. A billion dollars’ worth of buses.
And these are not just new buses, stresses Scannell, they are new, improved buses. Most will run on compressed natural gas, giving L.A. the oddly appropriate distinction of having the largest compressed natural gas bus fleet in the nation. As part of the settlement of the lawsuit, most will have safety cameras on board, and many will carry plainclothes LAPD and L.A. County sheriff’s officers (hence “More Security”).
Although the new buses are a standard length of 40 feet, seating 43 with a maximum of 15 riders standing (dropping to 11 in June, again in compliance with the terms of the settlement), they have larger windows and, says Scannell, “a brighter, airier feel.” The elderly members of the L.A. fleet are being replaced by the new models based on years served, miles traveled and general wear and tear. L.A.’s busiest line, for example, is No. 204, which runs along Vermont Avenue and boards about 48,000 folks a day; No. 20 along Wilshire Boulevard and No. 28 on Olympic Boulevard follow close behind.
No new routes are planned specifically for the new buses, though a line running from the Rosa Park station in Watts / Willowbrook to West Hollywood / Beverly Hills will be the first new route of the third millennium.
All of which is seemingly good news for the 1.1 million people who ride L.A. buses every day.
For the rest of us, the transit phobes and stubborn loners who would rather sit and curse the grinding, whistling leviathans as they jam up the right-hand lane with their myriad stops, at least there are some nice new billboards to look at. And the MTA should be careful about what it wishes for--if we all decided to heed the messages, they’d really have to start buying. In bulk.
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Mary McNamara can be reached by e-mail at mary.mcnamara@latimes.com.
