MTA to Roll Out Rapid Buses on Westside-Eastside, Valley Routes

In a debut overshadowed by the opening of the subway to the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles will launch a new rapid bus service next weekend--stretching from the Westside to the Eastside and across the San Fernando Valley--that uses new technology in a bold bid to speed the movement of buses.

The experiment is being watched nationally as a test to see if new buses equipped with electronic gear that can communicate with high-tech traffic signal systems can reduce travel time. One aspect of the technology allows the computerized system to keep traffic lights green so buses can move faster along major thoroughfares.

The system has its critics, including the Bus Riders Union, which likes the speeded-up routes but is irritated that other services are being eliminated to make room for them. Meanwhile, one question concerns officials: Will giving buses the power to keep lights green speed up transit times but snarl cross traffic?

With a new red-and-white color scheme to distinguish them from regular MTA buses, the rapid buses will travel from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles along heavily traveled Wilshire Boulevard before continuing east on Whittier Boulevard as far as Montebello. The new service in the Valley will run on Ventura Boulevard from Warner Center to the Universal City subway station.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials hope that rapid buses will be able to reduce transit travel times in the two corridors by as much as 25%. The buses will have fewer stops spaced farther apart than the existing limited-stop bus service. MTA will eliminate that service on the rapid bus corridors on Saturday.

The rapid buses feature a new design that eliminates the traditional steps at the front and back of the bus. A low floor makes entering and exiting easier and faster.

To introduce the service, the rapid bus lines will be free for passengers from Saturday through June 30.

“We’re trying to really improve travel time down the entire corridor,” said Rex Gephart, project manager for the Rapid Bus program. “If this works it could be really cool for the public.”

Rapid buses traveling across the Valley will have the ability to keep traffic lights green along that 13-mile route. But the signal priority system will function only in some sections of the 26-mile-long Wilshire-Whittier corridor.

The signal priority will be spotty because the sophisticated computer-controlled traffic system exists only in the city of Los Angeles. That means the buses will have to run through Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and the unincorporated area of East Los Angeles without the ability to affect traffic lights.

In areas where the buses can hold traffic lights green for as much as an extra 10 seconds, MTA officials acknowledge the possibility of worsening the backup of cross traffic at major intersections. That could be particularly true along the congested Wilshire corridor.

City traffic engineers say the computer system will adjust the traffic signals in subsequent cycles to try to make up for the extra time the buses take away from cross traffic or left-turn movements. And special software written by city engineers can automatically eliminate or reduce the length of the bus signal priority in subsequent periods, if necessary.

A special transmitter called a transponder on the bus communicates with sensors buried in the pavement along the route. Those sensors send information on the location of the bus and its speed to computers at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation’s traffic control center in the basement of City Hall East.

The movement of buses across the entire Ventura Boulevard corridor in the Valley and the part of the Wilshire-Whittier corridor that lies in Los Angeles can be seen on huge display screens at the traffic control center.

The data from every signalized intersection are continuously updated and displayed in the form of small bus icons moving across display screens.

Edward Thomas, associate administrator of the Federal Transit Administration in Washington, said the MTA’s experiment with rapid buses is being watched by other communities looking at instituting various types of bus rapid transit.

“As Los Angeles goes, so goes the rest of the nation,” Thomas said. The use of so-called intelligent transportation system technology like Los Angeles’ advanced traffic signal system is “a very key part of the bus rapid transit demonstration project,” he said.

Los Angeles, he added, is “in the lead in this particular area.”

Other cities are experimenting with rapid bus systems, each one somewhat different from the next. Honolulu was the first of 17 cities nationwide to plan such a system. The 12.6-mile rapid bus system in Hawaii’s biggest city uses a special carpool and bus lane on a freeway to move buses quickly from an outlying area into downtown and beyond. Another rapid bus project is planned to link Washington’s Dulles Airport with the city’s popular Metro subway system.

Thomas said one of the attractions of the rapid bus concept is that it can be implemented at far less expense than costly rail projects.

Indeed, Gephart estimated that the MTA is devoting between $8 million and $10 million to starting the rapid bus project, not including the cost of 90 new natural gas buses, which were being purchased anyway for the transit agency’s fleet. That’s a far cry from the billions it takes to build subway lines in Los Angeles.

The budget covers the cost of upgrades to the traffic signal system so the buses can have priority, plus installation of MTA’s control center and the placement of special bus stops separate from existing bus stops. Modern shelters called stations, with special canopies and electronic signs indicating when the next bus will arrive, will be installed over the next three to four months. “Everything is going to be ready except for the stations,” Gephart said.

In the Wilshire-Whittier corridor, the rapid bus will run every three to five minutes during peak periods and every 10 minutes during off-peak periods. The Ventura Boulevard rapid bus will run at 5- to 10-minute intervals during peak periods and every 12 minutes during off-peak periods.

Along the Wilshire-Whittier corridor, rapid buses will run from 5 a.m. to 11:40 p.m. In the Valley, the Ventura Boulevard rapid bus will operate from 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. eastbound. Westbound buses will run until 11:30 p.m.

After the free introductory period, the basic fare for using the rapid bus will be the same as that for MTA’s regular service: $1.35 unless discount tokens, special fares or passes are used.

In the Valley, transfers to the subway will be free, but a subway transfer will cost an extra 25 cents in the Wilshire corridor.

The Bus Riders Union, which normally pushes for new bus services, in this case favored a far more extensive rapid bus network originally proposed by MTA Chief Executive Officer Julian Burke. The plan for 16 rapid bus lines was scaled back by the MTA board until the success of the Ventura and Wilshire-Whittier lines can be assessed.

“We think rapid bus has been an example of an innovation that is being sabotaged,” said Eric Mann, leader of the Bus Riders Union. “It started out being a very bold initiative on Julian Burke’s part.”

Mann said rapid bus service could pose the first serious competition with the automobile in terms of travel time. But since the MTA is eliminating the limited-stop bus service along the same routes, riders may have to transfer to local buses to get to their destinations. So the Bus Riders Union’s initial enthusiasm has been replaced with criticism. “We are not going to be boosters for a fraud,” Mann said.

Despite such criticism, backers of the rapid bus concept hope that it will prove successful and will be expanded to other areas. Already, MTA is considering an exclusive busway along the Burbank-Chandler boulevards railroad right-of-way from the North Hollywood subway station to Warner Center. The agency is also studying exclusive busways for part of the Wilshire corridor and Exposition Boulevard from USC to the Westside.