Orange Line Station Question

[blueridge]

Why are the stations on the Orange Line placed before the North/South intersections and not after them? It seems that it would make more sense for the bus to stop prior to the intersection and use that time to trigger a stop for the North/South Auto traffic. Thanks.

[Transit Coalition]

blueridge said:

Why are the stations on the Orange Line placed before the North/South intersections and not after them? It seems that it would make more sense for the bus to stop prior to the intersection and use that time to trigger a stop for the North/South Auto traffic. Thanks.

Good Question! Many times you'll find the stations matched up, so for example at Van Nuys Blvd. and Balboa Blvd., both east and west are located east of the N/S arterial and at other intersections the stations are fractured. It all actually depends upon the available land and the relative cost. Those were the factors considered. Does anyone have a more complete answer?

[Justin Walker]

One third-party report by Richard Stanger says: "[LADOT] traffic engineers also recommended far-side platforms wherever possible because it would be more difficult to pretime the following traffic signal with a near-side station dwell of unknown duration." Because of the "partial signal priority" on the Orange Line, the buses do usually perform better at stations with far-side platforms.

If the timing works correctly, a bus stopping at far-side platforms should get a green for the intersection and will only need to stop once (for the platform). At near-side platforms, the bus must stop once at the platform, then a second time at the intersection.

ROW constraints necessitated near-side westbound platforms at Balboa, Van Nuys, and Woodman, and these intersections continue to delay buses noticeably. These near-side platforms are among the reasons why end-to-end running times vary from 39 to 47 minutes westbound and 37 to 45 eastbound. (A small but noteworthy difference.)