Los Angeles to cut Metro Rapid Lines

Image via Wikipedia
When you talk about BRT in the United States, Los Angeles and their Metro Rapid program is often brought up as a success story for the operation of BRT. This despite the fact that it is not true BRT and Los Angeles already had examples of BRT: The El Monte Busway, the poor performing Harbor Freeway Transitway, and now the Orange Line.

Metro Rapid started with two lines in June of 2000, the 720 and the 750 that traveled along two of LA's busy corridors Wilshire Blvd and Ventura Blvd. Since then 26 other Rapid lines have been implemented that covers most of Metro's operating area. In addition, Santa Monica Municipal bus lines has its own Rapid Line that runs from Santa Monica to the LAX bus station. Just a couple of months ago Metro introduced its most recent rapid line the 733 between Los Angeles and Santa Monica via Venice Blvd and the Venice area.

When Metro Rapid started there was promises of special bus stops including next bus indicators but only the first two stops received these special bus stops. In addition Metro only had an agreement with the city of Los Angeles for signal priority, so other routes were still stopped by traffic lights although Metro was working on agreements with other cities.

One thing that Metro in Los Angeles did get right is branding. They created a separate brand that differentiated Rapid from other bus routes in the area. In fact Metro created several different brands that each featured its own colors: Orange for every day local routes, Red for Metro Rapid, Blue for express routes (only a couple of these are left), and Silver for Rail services, the Orange Line busway and the new Silver Line connecting the Harbor Freeway and El Monte transitways.

Like every other transit system across the nation that depends on sales tax revenue, Los Angeles is facing making cuts to bus service because of declining sales tax revenue. In addition, Los Angeles is also facing cuts from the state as the Govenator continues to raid transit funds to put into his own pet projects and to shore up California's horrible fiscal situation. Therefore Metro is being forced to cut 4% of its bus service. What is interesting is that several Rapid Lines will be among the casualties.

Even one of the original Rapid lines the 750 will loose weekend service with the cuts. In addition the areas south of downtown Los Angeles will loose several of their Rapid routes outright.

So why, if Metro Rapid is so successful would several routes be on the chopping block?

First of all if you look at the Metro Rapid maps you will notice that except for a couple of exceptions, all Metro Rapid routes follow the same route as the local routes. So in other words the Rapid lines did not create any new markets for bus service. Instead of taking a blank slate and saying where would be the most effective markets to create new markets, they either replaced already existing limited stop service or routed the rapid lines down the same streets as the local lines.

The one route that truly created new markets plus serving existing markets is the 720. This route overlapped two bus corridors creating new opportunities for riders for a through ride.

The other problem with following existing bus service when creating these Metro Rapid routes is that local bus service was cut to provide the Rapid service. This assumes that a majority of the market is looking for the faster ride and the bus stops in between are of no importance. The problem with using is philosophy is not understanding your market. How many of your customers need the local service as opposed to the new Rapid line.

The Utah Transit Authority found this out when they implemented their MAX service. UTA severally cut route 35 that parallels the new MAX route down to hourly service during the day. However, after only a short time UTA increased service to every 30-minutes due to demand for the existing 35.

In fact Metro in Los Angeles is planning to beef up local service when the rapids are cut.

While the Rapid service made since with the length of many Metro routes travel, it is important to determine the market the line is going to go after and not just follow your existing bus routes. When you create a new service clean the slate and look for new markets.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Metro Debuts New Rapid Service between Downtown and Santa Monica (laist.com)
• Los Angeles County bus service cuts planned (sfgate.com)
• MTA drops or reduces 18 bus lines to save about $30 million a year [Updated] (latimesblogs.latimes.com)

The BRT Dog and Pony Show

Image by Bill.Roehl via Flickr For those of you who didn't know about it or didn't see it, the BRT or 'Bus Rapid Transit' dog and pony show rolled into town a couple of weeks ago once again proclaiming that BRT is the transit answer and how it is a cheaper alternative to Light Rail.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually in most cases BRT is more expensive than light rail if you look at comparable systems. The only problem is that when BRT is compared it shows a system with less features that light rail. However few BRT schemes are actually comparable to light rail so its impossible for people to see the price difference.

The only BRT scheme that has come close to the true nature of Light Rail is the new Orange Line in Los Angeles however it still has to deal with traffic lights instead of grade crossings so it is also no where close to light rail. Although ridership looks impressive right now they it is still impossible to determine if the ridership is all from the neighboring bus routes.

Ridership is also less than impressive with most new BRT lines. The line in Kansas has attracted little ridership, the Las Vegas system is carrying only a fraction more people than the buses it replaced, the Harbor Freeway busway in Los Angeles attracts few riders, and ridership on the El Monte Busway in Los Angeles has been stagnant for years. In addition busways in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Miami have failed to live up to expectations.

At least in Salt Lake County UTA is using BRT where it should be, in corridors that would not see TRAX in the next 30 years. 1300 East, Redwood Road and 3100 South are perfect areas to have BRT. BRT is not a low cost alternative to TRAX, it is a supplement to the TRAX system that can be an effective system of feeding riders into the much more popular TRAX system.

Now if only Utah County would see the light...