Live from the Third Rail: Archive

October 18, 2005

Bright orange, hopefully

The Orange Line, a guided busway bus rapid transit line opening soon in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. Metro has a pretty fancy web site for the project, and the buses themselves look quite nice. Initial ridership projections are pretty low, and as the article says the positioning of the line might not be optimal to attract that many people. Looking at the overall Metro map though, it seems like a good extension, like Los Angeles is almost developing a decent transit infrastructure. I have a friend in Woodland Hills, so maybe I will get a chance to ride this someday.

Post Author: csa | 10:21 AM | Link | TrackBacks

Comments

So LA now has FIVE separate, incompatible transit systems.

Posted by: Frank IBC at October 18, 2005 10:24 AM

Yeah, and are these busses special past CNG, low floor, and 'wheel covers'? Nifty train-like styling?

Why put bikes inside of these busses? I'm guessing they can only fit 2-3 in there anyhow, so why not just use sportsworks racks and add another 2 seats?

They have the 'extra doors', but the University of Minnesota has been running BRT service with 'extra doors' (3 instead of 2) for a long time now. (Articulated with 3 entry/exit doors). There are no fares on this service so loading/unloading is much helped by them) The route is shorter, but I believe it handles more people per day than this system will. (its ridership is compressed into the school year, it runs during the summer but there isn't as many riders)

Only thing I do hope to see is a good amount of service -- we've got some projects here in Minneapolis that are probally watching this BRT project for pointers on what works and what doesn't.

Posted by: Scott Dier at October 18, 2005 11:33 AM

Wow. What does a fella have to do to get a unified, reliable, useful transit system in the 2nd largest city in the country?

Posted by: LAer at October 19, 2005 8:47 AM

There's an interesting thread about this going on at the SkyscraperPage forums. It starts off w/ an LA Daily News editorial, but there's plenty of good stuff after that. It would seem the Orange line has some problems.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?s=6cd6b86430cce2b052ffb89f57c00604&threadid=88944

Posted by: BeyondDC at October 19, 2005 9:05 AM