Metro is underway in their NextGen Bus Study to propose a redesign of the entire Los Angeles County Bus Network. NextGen marks the first time in 25 years that Metro will comprehensively re-examine the service it provides, even down to fundamentally rethinking what public transportation can and should be in the 21st century. It is expected the findings from this study will lead to launching a new bus network in the Fall of 2019.
While technology does provide opportunities for the transit sector to better tailor the experience of riding public transportation to the changing expectations of an increasingly-connected world, one thing that hasn’t changed in 2018 is that the quality of bus service will determine how people feel about going Metro.
Over the past 5 years, that quality has been trending downward. Since 2013, Metro’s average bus speed has declined by 15%. Meanwhile, today, rapid buses, originally envisioned as a stepping stone to Bus Rapid Transit, are on time just 66% of the time. As might be expected, average daily boardings have also fallen over the same period, as passengers seek faster and more reliable rides. The bus network carries 20% fewer riders today than it did in 2014.
Achieving NextGen’s goal of reinvigorating Metro’s ridership will require going beyond cosmetic measures like redesigning individual bus lines and marginal adjustments to frequencies. Metro needs to show riders that buses can be trusted to get them where they’re going in a reasonable amount of time. Given where the starting point is – a Metro presentation this month announced that nearly 80% of bus trips originating in the downtown area took at least twice as long as the same trip by car – any substantial solution must find a way to incorporate bus-only lanes on a greater number of LA’s streets.
Bus-only lanes are not a new concept in LA. The original El Monte Busway along the 10 freeway opened in the 1970s. But since then finding the political will to build and maintain high-quality bus lanes has been a halting process. Metro doesn’t have authority over what happens on city streets. The layout of the county, with its many interwoven municipalities, makes coordinating bus lanes along lengthy corridors a daunting challenge.
Take the example of Wilshire, for example. LA’s iconic thoroughfare from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica hosts the region’s busiest bus lines, and, on part of its length, it also has bus-only lanes. But the effectiveness of those lanes has been hindered by the refusal of specific cities and neighborhoods to allow transit-only lanes in their communities.
The lanes stop abruptly in Beverly Hills, Westwood, and Santa Monica, leaving buses stuck in some of the county’s worst traffic, and potentially wiping out the increased speed that they could be achieving by traveling in dedicated lanes. As one of the county’s largest distributors of tax revenue, Metro needs to be willing to use the substantial leverage it has at its disposal to encourage cities to accept bus-only lanes.
Design also plays a major role in the success of a bus-only lane. Using Wilshire again as an example, buses occupy the rightmost traffic lane, leading to frequent conflicts with backed up lines of cars turning right. In general, bus-only lanes should seek to separate buses from the movements of single occupancy vehicles as much as possible. On mixed traffic roads, that means giving buses the center lanes, allowing them to avoid delays. Having center-running bus lanes requires a greater commitment from Metro and the cities, as it necessitates providing some space for passengers to get on and off the bus safely on a platform in the center of the street. But this type of investment is what should be considered normal on LA’s most heavily traveled transit corridors – which are also the ones that experience the most significant traffic delay.
Design and corridor choice are only part of the battle for high-quality bus-only lanes. The continued effectiveness of these lanes relies on active management by Metro, largely boiling down to the enforcement that accompanies them. People driving single occupancy vehicles, as CEO Phil Washington noted on his way to a recent Dodgers game, can often be found in bus-only lanes, leading to traffic jams that negate the investment and scare riders away.
Transit-only lanes need to be clearly marked, and an expectation should be set that only authorized vehicles will be allowed to use the lanes. This type of enforcement, which focuses on improving the speed of a bus ride rather than on monitoring riders, should be a greater point of emphasis in Metro’s bus system.
Expanding bus lanes has never been an easy proposition. But the breadth of the responsibility that Los Angeles voters have placed in Metro’s hands, a sweeping mandate to expand transit use, reduce traffic, and improve the sustainability of our region, demands difficult action be taken. It is time for the LA Region to get serious about bus lanes.
