I used to catch the Big Blue Bus #10 bus at the stop at Santa Monica Blvd. and 16th to get to school. I’d wait for the bus, on a corner boasting 2 Nissan dealers (1 used, 1 new), a Suzuki dealer, and a 7-Eleven.
Tough to get away from cars, even when you’re not driving them –
But starting this week, my bus stop’s moved over a block to Santa Monica Blvd. and 17th. Basically, this move replaces 2 stops (1 at 16th, 1 at 18th) with 1.
Oddly, the stops for the #1 line — which also runs down Santa Monica Blvd and uses those stops — remain unchanged, so we now have Big Blue Bus markers on 3 blocks in a row, each with an extra sign that specifies which lines stop where.
It seems rather unnecessarily confusing to me…. On the other hand, this move brought the #10 stop a block closer to my place, so I can’t really complain.
So now, I wait for the #10 on Santa Monica Blvd and 17th, surrounded by 2 Acura dealers (1 used, 1 new), Santa Monica Auto Sales, and an Enterprise Rent-a-Car. The more things change –
Update, 2/12/07: Line 10 might be getting a route change too! We get to try the new route out for a week first –
Ah. The beauty of public transportation in L.A. We’ve got two blue bus stops within 200 yards or so, and in the middle between them, there’s a stop for the 720.
You’d think they’d realize that large parts of the route coincide, so it’d be easier for people to just have one stop - especially given the notorious unreliability of the schedule - but nooo. We need as many bus stops as humanly possible!
Comment by Robert 'Groby' Blum — February 7, 2007 @ 2:24 pm
What I find interesting is just how damn many bus services we have here. I went up to the Laemmle Sunset theatre today (which also included a hefty walk to avoid long bus waits) and realized that West Hollywood has their own Muni Bus service. That’s on top of Culver City, Santa Monica, LADOT, MTA, just in a few miles of my apartment. IIRC, Long Beach has their own muni bus, there’s another for the south bay, San Gabriel Valley and Pasadena, and that’s all just LA County (and I’m sure I’m missing some).
But at least now there’s a map. And the MTA website will give routes with all of the above. Ten years ago there wasn’t even a map, let alone a website. There was all this bus service out there, but if you weren’t properly initiated, you’d have no idea where it went, when it got there or how much it cost.
Comment by don hosek — February 7, 2007 @ 4:41 pm
I totally agree with Don. But I think the problem extends to far more than public transit. We have way too many local governments, none of which do anything to work together. Ostensibly, the MTA oversees all the transit agencies within LA County, but as we all know, this oversight isn’t too evident.
Comment by Rafi — February 7, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
The reason we have so many transit agencies is because of Proposition A. The sales tax passed for public transit mandated how the money is to be apportioned: one part to rail, one part to RTD/Metro bus service, and yet another part goes back to the cities as local return funds.
Before Proposition A, you had RTD, Santa Monica, Culver City, Montebello, Gardena, Torrance, Norwalk and Commerce. After Proposition A passed, L.A. County now has one transit system for every 2 cities, including L.A. County running shuttles in unincorporated neighborhoods completely separate from Metro.
The point of these many systems was to not cooperate with Metro. And Metro cannot raid the funds and shut the systems down. Worse, a city can kick out Metro if it wishes to provide the same service, with some restrictions.
Rafi wrote:
Ostensibly, the MTA oversees all the transit agencies within LA County, but as we all know, this oversight isn’t too evident.
No, Metro does not.
Metro only oversees the service it operates. It acts as a funding bursar for the state and federal governments, but cannot seize these funds.
Metro cannot touch any municipal operator’s planning or operations.
Comment by Wad — February 7, 2007 @ 6:22 pm
Wad — Wondering if you see any possible way we can get our bus systems to work together. What do you think it would take? A different proposition that undoes some of the damage (whether intended or not) that Prop A did? Some sort of coalition body between the different bus systems?
Comment by Siel — February 9, 2007 @ 12:06 am