MTA May End or Reduce Service on 21 Bus Routes

Twice a week, Leonard Feldman, 90 and blind in one eye, takes the No. 218 bus from Studio City over the Hollywood Hills to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to visit his ailing wife.

“It’s the only way I’m going to get over the hill without making all kinds of transfers,” Feldman said while sitting with just one other passenger on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus. But he soon may have to find a new way to the hospital.

Trying to save money, the MTA hopes to reduce service on Line 218 by canceling weekend trips and operating only during rush hours, Mondays through Fridays.

The change is part of an MTA plan to eliminate or cut service on 21 bus lines with few riders and to add service on two routes. The changes, which could take effect Oct. 26, would shake up routes throughout Los Angeles County.

The proposed cuts follow a reshuffling in June, when the MTA reduced or eliminated service on 10 low-performing routes while adding trips to 62 crowded lines and creating 14 new ones -- the biggest overhaul of the county’s bus service in two decades.

The changes signal a shift in philosophy for the nation’s third-largest transit agency. The MTA, which operates nearly 200 bus routes, wants to function more like a business in an era of dwindling funds and increasing traffic congestion.

“We’re trying to get maximum efficiency,” said MTA Deputy Chief John Catoe. “That means we have to make hard choices about bus routes that aren’t generating many riders.”

But critics say the agency is giving short shrift to riders whose lives don’t fall neatly within typical commuting hours.

Nancy Coreas, a 22-year-old student at Los Angeles Valley College, said she takes the No. 167 bus to school every day. “I take it on weekends to go to work.” Coreas, who attended a recent Van Nuys public hearing to protest the proposed cancellation of weekend runs on the route between Studio City and Chatsworth, said, “If I don’t have that transportation, I can’t go to work. I can’t pay for school. I won’t be able to pay my rent.”

The MTA operates under a federal consent decree that requires better service and less crowding on buses.

The agency has long failed to satisfy the demands of the order, although Donald Bliss, the court-appointed special master monitoring the MTA’s progress, allowed the agency to proceed with its June plan. Last week, Bliss asked the agency to add at least 117 new buses to its fleet by next year.

While pleased that the MTA had added service to crowded lines over the summer, some riders think Bliss should not have let the agency tamper with or cut other routes. “Don’t they get it?” asked Downey resident Andrew Novak, who commutes by bus to his job at Cal State L.A.. “These are real lives they are affecting.”

MTA officials say the changes are part of a larger effort to get more bang for the taxpayer buck and are a harbinger of major changes in the works for public transit in the county: a “hub and spoke” route system of short-hop shuttles and express buses to carry riders between a network of new transit centers.

Toward those ends, the MTA is expanding its network of the highly popular Metro Rapid buses, which make fewer stops and use transponder technology to keep traffic lights green as they approach. Countywide, there are now six Metro Rapid lines, and the agency plans to add 22 more within five years.

The MTA also seeks to eliminate overlapping routes and rely more on such municipal operators as Culver CityBus to provide service. The savings from cuts to poorly used or duplicate routes will help pay for additional trips on busy lines, officials say.

Fares do not fully cover the cost of operating buses, and the shortfall is covered by public subsidies. To choose where to cut service, the agency is taking aim at bus lines with few riders. Some of the busiest routes handle considerably more than 100 boardings an hour and have subsidies of about $1 a rider.

Feldman’s Line 218 carries 21 people an hour with a subsidy of $2.15 per rider, according to the MTA’s May data.

Other lines the MTA hopes to cut are even more costly to operate. For example, Line 58 provides the only connection between the Metro Rail Blue Line, the downtown Los Angeles Greyhound station and Union Station. The MTA hyped the line when it began three years ago as an alternative for garment workers in the city’s fashion district. But Line 58 averages just three passengers per hour on the road and a per-rider public subsidy of $16.66, the MTA says.

Because of the changes in June, the total number of hours that MTA buses serve the public increased 1%. The number of annual miles traveled by buses grew by 300,000, to 92 million. Officials say the agency also added 270,000 annual bus “trips” systemwide, a 5.5% increase.

But part of that, they concede, was generated when some long lines were divided into two or three shorter routes that required some riders to transfer more often, thus generating more “trips.”

The proposed October changes, if approved by the MTA’s five regional councils, would wipe out some or all of those gains. The agency estimates that there still would be a net increase of 200,000 annual bus trips. But annual bus-miles would drop by 1 million, to 91 million. No estimates were available for the effect on bus service hours.

MTA officials say that, before implementing any more changes, they will work to better inform the bus-riding public. Despite the agency’s belief that it improved overall service with the June changes, many riders still find shortcomings and continue to complain bitterly at public meetings.

“I’d give us a C minus on how we managed” the June changes, said MTA Chief Executive Roger Snoble. “That’s got to change.”

It’s not a public relations problem, bus riders say, but one of service, which may be improving overall but has made life more difficult for some riders because service is more fragmented.

“With the cuts, transportation has been horrendous. It’s been decimated,” said Pat O’Connor, a 60-year-old Pacoima resident. “Trips I used to take ... that took me an hour, it now takes me two hours.”

Some riders say the increased inconvenience is making them reconsider using public transit.

Gladwell Bote, a 45-year-old Canoga Park caregiver, said that -- because of poor route-to-route connections -- what used to be an hour commute to Burbank takes 15 minutes longer since her line was replaced by a Metro Rapid bus. “It has really started me thinking maybe I should get a car,” she said.