Orange Line Buses May Get Strobe Light Signals

To make the buses on the new Metro Orange Line busway easier for motorists to spot -- and thus less vulnerable to accidents -- transportation officials have asked for permission to deck them out with white strobe lights.

On Thursday, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority unveiled a model bus equipped with small flashing lights on each of its corners and along its sides.

“We’re trying to make the buses more visible. They’re the type of light that when you’re up close, they’re not that bright at all,” said Richard Hunt, the MTA’s general manager who oversees transit in the San Fernando Valley region.

“But when you get far away, it gets intense,” he said.

The demo bus has yet to be put into service on the 14-mile busway, which opened last month.

Use of the strobe lights needs to be approved by the California Highway Patrol, Hunt said, because it’s unclear whether the state vehicle code allows the use of strobe lights on transit buses, as it does on school buses.

Tom Marshall, spokesman for the CHP, said his agency had received the MTA’s request and would probably respond in two weeks.

Strobe lights are among the latest changes being considered by officials and traffic engineers to improve safety along the Orange Line, an east-west bus-only corridor between North Hollywood and Warner Center in Woodland Hills.

The busway, which was built over an old rail corridor, intersects city streets in 36 places, and some motorists say they find the rail-like crossings confusing.

In the busway’s opening week, 15 people were injured in two collisions involving buses and cars crossing the busway’s intersections.

Officials blamed the accidents on the motorists, who they say ran red lights. But since the crashes, they have rushed to implement additional safety measures, such as installing red-light cameras and tweaking traffic signals to give vehicles more time to clear crossings.

The MTA and city traffic engineers also are considering painting the silver-gray buses a brighter color, installing rumble strips in the roadway pavement and adding more warning signs.