Big Blue Bus Expo Line Service Proposals

[joshuanickel]

The big blue bus has come up with some preliminary recommendations that they would like input on in regards to how to service expo when it comes to Santa Monica.

Here is the link to the survey where they will show each line with the proposed headways and length of service:

Big Blue Bus Expo Proposal Survey

Some of the proposals:

-Lines 4,6,13,and rapid 20 eliminated
-Line 41(crosstown)becomes bi-directional and serves 17th street station.
-Line 44(sunset) extended to 17th street station
-Line 5 cut down to be from bergamont to palms station(goes thru cheviot hills replacing line 13)connects century city to palms station.
-Line 8 diverted to continue on national to palms and culver city station. No longer serving westwood and ucla.
-Line 2 ending at wilshire/westwood
-Line 12 and rapid 12 combined in to one line with 5 min peak headways. would go from ucla to sony studios on westwood/overland
-More service added to rapid 7 and less service on line 7
-Line 14 extended to playa vista
-Line 3 and rapid 3 combined in to one line with limited stops and all day service
-Line 1 extended from venice to marina del ray harbor area
-New sawtelle route from va to palms station with connection at sepulveda
-New barington route from washington pl. to brentwood with connection at bundy
-New 26th/23rd/walgrove route from brentwood to marina del ray hospital with connection at bergamont

Take a look at the survey it is very interesting and gives alot of detail.

[Dan Wentzel]

Great survey. Some of the proposals are really interesting.

I suggested some tweaks on several of the lines.

The two major flaws I see initially are:

First, Cutting the 2 and the 3 and the 8 from UCLA. I think that is too much reduction to just leave UCLA and Westwood with the 1 and the 12 only. While the new configuration for the 8 is interesting, I just foresee the transfer traffic from the Westwood stop between Expo and UCLA will be too much for the 12 to handle on its own. Cutting off the 2 on the east didn't make sense either. Maybe it can head down Westwood to the Expo Line for those who will take Expo for points west on Wilshire.

The other is reducing the Local 7 to thirty minutes runs apart. You've got to be kidding me. The Local 7's are already stuffed like sardine tins during rush hour by people who use the LOCAL service. There is heavy demand for local service on Pico. Once again it just makes me think that Big Blue Blus is over its head and cannot handle the heavy demand on Pico Blvd, and I wonder if BBB should just let Metro provide the local and rapid service on Pico east of Westwood.

[bzcat]

Regarding Line 2/3/8 not going to UCLA, I think the issue is congestion on Westwood Blvd is forcing much longer run times on BBB buses. If you eliminate Line 2 and 8 on Westwood Blvd but increase Line 1 and 12 headways (as BBB is proposing), you can probably move more people with fewer resources in a set amount of time on this corridor. This of course assumes you can transfer for free at Westwood/Wilshire and Westwood/National. The added cost of extra boarding is the real problem here in my opinion, not so much a capacity issue. But fortunately, UCLA staff and students can already transfer for free (if they have Bruin Go!). Line 3 to UCLA is a typically low ridership via San Vicente so I don't see much impact here.

As for Line 2 going south to Expo, I don't think it is necessary. People heading east from downtown and midtown Santa Monica can already take 720 or Rapid 7, and both will likely be faster to Wilshire/Western than taking the long detour on Line 2 to reach Expo. BBB wants to simplify its network into grids so this kind of dogleg running is counter to their goal of providing higher capacity on major routes. I much rather they use the resources to add the new N-S bus on Barrington and Walgrove (as BBB is proposing).

Line 7 going down to 30 minutes is not great but not a total disaster. The real issue here is the size of the bus, not necessarily headway. If Local 7 is operated with 60 ft bus, I think the overcrowding will ease. Along the same line, for BBB's new plan to work, 12/Rapid 12 will probably need 60 ft buses all day. Right now, BBB doesn't even have enough 60ft bus to operate Rapid 7 and Rapid 3 all day so this is an issue.

And I'm VERY surprised that BBB is not planning to increase headway on Bundy/Line 14. Line 14 will become very important for phase 2 (like Rapid 12 has since Expo phase 1 opened).

[masonite]

Jul 18, 2014 9:59:43 GMT -8 bzcat said:

And I'm VERY surprised that BBB is not planning to increase headway on Bundy/Line 14. Line 14 will become very important for phase 2 (like Rapid 12 has since Expo phase 1 opened).

I was too, but they are adding a Barrington bus that stops at Expo/Bundy so in effect that does provide additional service for the corridor since Barrington and Bundy are not far apart.

[elray]

Was nagged today to take the survey.

Imagine my surprise to find ... Big Blue is up to their same old tricks.
I guess given their response on the $7 million un-bench program, I should not be.

They're looking, once again, to dramatically cut local service, even worse than the last time.
Proposing 30-minute headways on Local 7's.

Even worse, they're proposing to terminate Local 3 service on Manchester and via Sepulveda.
Their suggestion?
"Take the Metro 115 and/or the Culver City 6".

Since when is reduced service, longer walks and multiple forced transfers an improvement in mobility?
Somehow I guess it serves Expo, but what about the transit patron?

So glad we bought a car...

[bzcat]

Oct 9, 2014 10:33:09 GMT -8 elray said:

Was nagged today to take the survey.

Imagine my surprise to find ... Big Blue is up to their same old tricks.
I guess given their response on the $7 million un-bench program, I should not be.

They're looking, once again, to dramatically cut local service, even worse than the last time.
Proposing 30-minute headways on Local 7's.

Even worse, they're proposing to terminate Local 3 service on Manchester and via Sepulveda.
Their suggestion?
"Take the Metro 115 and/or the Culver City 6".

Since when is reduced service, longer walks and multiple forced transfers an improvement in mobility?
Somehow I guess it serves Expo, but what about the transit patron?

So glad we bought a car...

I'm glad you are not in charge of planning bus service... You want local buses to go everywhere all the time but you probably also one of those people that will bark endlessly if fare has to go up to pay for those low performing local routes.

The reason Local 7 headway reduction is being proposed is because BBB believe more people will be taking Expo to reach West LA and Santa Monica rather than endure the slow Metro 30 and a forced transfer at Rimpau. It's a very plausible outcome and thus you plan to allocate the resource to meet the projected ridership. Reducing Local 7 to match the lower demand is logical and shifting the resources over to Rapid 7 will improve reliability and reduce bus bunching. The people that uses Local 7 between Rimpau and Downtown Santa Monica are currently getting a free ride in higher frequency because of the transfer volume at Rimpau to SMC. If transfer volume shrinks (I would use the term "collapse") after Phase 2 opens, BBB will need to set the frequency to the nature demand on this corridor. Also, there is a big problem on Pico with the size of the bus. Pico at the current 12 minutes headway for Local 7 results in crazy bus bunching during rush hour. Reducing headway but using bigger bus is one way to address this problem.

Local 3 on Manchester is one of those marginal part of the network that doesn't add a lot of value. It has low boarding and not likely to grow. If ridership elsewhere on the Lincoln corridor continues to grow, it's wise to shift the resources to serve more people more of the time. I'm kind of on the fence with this one... BBB leaving Manchester is a true downgrade (unlike the Local 7, which is just matching service to likely demand).

[Gokhan]

I gave up on the Big Blue Bus long time ago. Long headways and frequently absent buses easily turn a 1-mile trip to an hour or more. Metro should take over the Big Blue Bus.

[LAofAnaheim]

At one time, Big Blue Bus was one of the "better managed" bus agencies in Los Angeles County. However, once Metro moved to TAP and got real-time train/bus arrival information with Nextbus...........that perception has changed.

BBB still refuses to sign on to TAP and there is no real-time information available for potential riders.

At least with Metro NextBus, you know when your bus/train is arriving, and that is the best information you need when using public transit.

[joshuanickel]

Oct 11, 2014 15:01:38 GMT -8 LAofAnaheim said:

At one time, Big Blue Bus was one of the "better managed" bus agencies in Los Angeles County. However, once Metro moved to TAP and got real-time train/bus arrival information with Nextbus...........that perception has changed.

BBB still refuses to sign on to TAP and there is no real-time information available for potential riders.

At least with Metro NextBus, you know when your bus/train is arriving, and that is the best information you need when using public transit.

Big blue bus announce at a community meeting earlier this year in July that the tap validators (like long beach) are coming next year and they had just started talks with nextbus to be a part of that system.

[transitfan]

Oct 10, 2014 11:03:47 GMT -8 Gokhan said:

I gave up on the Big Blue Bus long time ago. Long headways and frequently absent buses easily turn a 1-mile trip to an hour or more. Metro should take over the Big Blue Bus.

Not that that would ever happen, but if it did, that would solve MTA's Division 6 problem. They could just move from the current location on Main St & Sunset Av to the BBB yard

The routes might be trickier.  For the BBB 1, they could just extend some MTA line 4 trips to Venice.  The 2, I guess divert some line 20 trips into the VA.  The 7, extend some line 30 trips to Santa Monica (that would be a looooooooooooonnnng route, though.  Maybe short turn those trips somewhere in downtown L. A.  The other routes, I'd have to look at it.  Anyway, probably not happening, if anything, MTA may try to dump the 534 onto BBB if it only runs Santa Monica-Malibu after Expo Phase 2 opens.

[joshuanickel]

Big Blue Bus will present their revised expo service proposals to the city council for discussion on Tuesday. There have been some changes made from the original proposal in July, but in my opinion, it is still a great plan.

Here are the highlights:

9% increase in vehicle revenue hours of service
Seven new north-south Expo connectivity corridors established
Bus-to-bus/rail transfers facilitated at the downtown station
Downtown bus traffic reduced by 42,000 miles of travel per year and most bus layovers removed from central downtown Santa Monica
Major ridership patterns preserved and opportunities for new ridership opened up
LA Metro agreement to a 15% reduction of duplicative downtown service
Bus ridership projected to increase by 14% or approximately 9,000 more daily riders

Link to staff report:

4. STUDY SESSION: 4-A: Big Blue Bus/Expo Service Integration Proposal – recommendation that City Council review and comment on the proposed recommendations for new and restructured BBB routes and schedules that will provide seamless integration with Expo Light Rail at the eight stations in the BBB service area.

Link to actual proposal:

Big Blue Bus Expo Integration Study

[bzcat]

Looks like BBB is going to implement some of the route changes even before Expo line opens. This new Line 14 stop is located in Playa Vista (Bluffcreek @ Campus Center Dr).

[joshuanickel]

Jul 24, 2015 10:07:12 GMT -8 bzcat said:

Looks like BBB is going to implement some of the route changes even before Expo line opens. This new Line 14 stop is located in Playa Vista (Bluffcreek @ Campus Center Dr).

All of the changes will be implemented in four phases beginning On August 23rd. The remaining changes will happen in February, June, and August of next year. There will also be a fare change at some point next year where the fare is proposed to go up to $1.25, but that is not finalized yet. Here is an overview of the four different phases:

Big Blue Bus - The Evolution of Blue has begun

Here is a more detailed look at the August Service Changes:

Big Blue Bus - Service Changes Planned for August 23, 2015

[joshuanickel]

Before the first phase of expo service changes begins on August 23rd, Big Blue Bus will be doing a Redit AMA on August 19th to answer any questions people may have. Here are the details:

Reddit AMA with Big Blue Bus about Evolution of Blue and August Service Change on Wednesday, August 19 at 2pm

Reddit AMA with Big Blue Bus about Evolution of Blue and August Service Change on Wednesday, August 19 at 2pm.

With the opening of the Expo Light Rail Line planned Spring 2016, BBB's upcoming Service Change marks the beginning of a major redesign of Big Blue Bus routes. Get all of your questions about the upcoming Big Blue Bus service change and our Evolution of Blue plan at our next Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything). On Wednesday, August 19 between 2pm and 3pm, BBB's Transit Planning Administrator, Timothy McCormick, will be online to answer all of your questions.

For the uninitiated, Reddit is well-known for its Q&A sessions, called Ask Me Anything (AMA). Reddit allows users to upvote and downvote comments and entire threads. Content that is upvoted moves to the top, while content that is downvoted moves to the bottom or falls altogether.

We look forward to chatting with you and answering your questions on Wednesday, August 19. Because we're limited to an hour, Big Blue Bus will prioritize answering questions with the highest upvotes and questions about our Expo integration plans. If you can't be 'there' with us at 2PM, you'll be able to submit your questions in advance through a link we post to the Santa Monica sub-reddit as well as through our own branded social media feeds.

Details

Dates:
8/17: You will be able to pose questions for Big Blue Bus to answer at a thread we begin on www.reddit.com/r/santamonica
8/19 between 2pm and 3pm: We will answer as many questions as possible live. Keep clicking F5 (refresh) to see new answers.

Chat Producers:
Brian Liang, Community Relations Intern
Sirinya Matute, Transit Marketing Coordinator
Photos:

Photos will be available to the press through our Facebook page www.facebook.com/SMBigBlueBus.