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ChineseLive Post: Waiting for the 217
According to my clock, the 217 bus was supposed to be here 3 minutes ago. A shiny empty articulated Rapid bus just passed, and boy does it look comfortable. Maybe my clock is off and I just missed the 217 by a minute or two… no matter, according to the Metro Trip Planner I checked this morning, another should be here in 5 minutes. Having said that, it sure would be nice if there was some type of electronic signage that told me when the next bus was scheduled to arrive. Hell. it coukd even be old fashioned signage, I’d just like to see a timetable for piece of mind. It’s a bit cumbersome to go back through the MTA Trip Planner on my T-Mobile Sidekick (which I’m writing this on right now), and I’m sure the majority of Transit users don’t have a handheld web browsing device…yet. Ah! Here’s the 217, right on time at 10:07, I guess I did miss the 9:57 bus. That wasn’t too bad… not bad at all.
Written in real time via Hiptop.
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yeah, that 217 is usually a pretty good boi, its just a really packed boi as well cuz it heads right through the heart of hollywood. thank god for the 717 and future 780.
Now I realize I was at fault, the bust comes at 20 minute intervals not 10. So the 9:57 bus didn’t come because it was a 9:47 bus. My bad.
Tyke, the 717/780 merger was supposed to have been one line from the start. Glad MTA’s making things right.
There were a few problems with these services. First, there weren’t enough red buses available to start 717, so it debuted as Line 317. When it became 717, MTA did not get around to planning the length of a single long route from Pasadena to West L.A. So they remained separate for almost two years, even though both lines are out of Division 7. It would have been problematic if both lines were out of separate divisions.
Administratively, MTA is now free to merge ridership statistics into the Line 780 trunk. This means when you hear MTA citing an astronomical ridership for the line, it will be a combination of lines 217, 180/181 and 780. The 75,000 boardings for the Wilshire Rapid are actually the combined boardings of the Rapid itself as well as local lines 18, 20 and 21.
Besides that, services like 780 are how bus lines should run. We need more crosstown services like this. L.A. is lucky to have a grid and relatively frequent bus service, but grids force many transfers and high-frequency bus service cannot be coordinated for timed transfers.
Wad, how do you find out how MTA comes up with its ridership numbers for bus and rail? It always seems that they play a little sneaky with these numbers to spin them higher, as with the example you gave… but where did you find that information? Thanks for your posts by the way, very informative.
You can find rail ridership staistics on the MTA web site at http://www.metro.net/news_info/ridership_avg.htm . Click on the left hand links for ridership stats from your favorite rail lines. Bus service ridership generally isn’t readily available online but you can find them in Governance Council meetings, or in staff reports when lines get cut or cancelled.
The 780 actually is too long for a rapid line and will be unreliable. Jon Hillmer, the manager of the line, is actually planning to put in a first-ever Rapid Bus timepoint at Prospect and Vermont. There was a big political fight to split the line because of how much traffic it would get stuck in Downtown Glendale. The real reason that the line is combined is that a housing project at Hollywood and Vine will eliminate some bus parking spaces, so it was cheaper to run the bus through.
Fred, MTA releases rail and bus system ridership every month. However, a really thorough line-by-line statistics book is available at the MTA library. It’s open to the public, but at very limited hours. Ask the guards in the Taj Mahal when it’s open. I no longer know the days, and I think access has been limited due to the passing of librarian Dorothy Gray.
Unfortunately, MTA stopped publishing the line-by-line stats sometime in 1998. They got too expensive to collect data and publish them every quarter.
And they are thorough. Every quarterly issue is as large as a phone book. There’s over a thousand pages of data, which is very exhaustive. It has ridership, farebox recovery, operating cost, bus commitments, year-to-date comparisons of said statistics, and ridership is also broken down into weekday, Saturday, Sunday and holiday categories.
You’d figure that a book like this had better be large. Yes, but there are shortcuts. Namely, not every route is counted. MTA only counts trunk lines. With Rapid, MTA has to count Rapid line ridership separately, but the ridership figures given to the public count the Rapid and local services together.
To help you on your way to transit geekdom, here is the list of MTA trunk lines and their branches:
2: 2, 302
4: 4, 304
10: 10, 11, 48
14: 14, 37, 714
16: 16, 316
20: 18, 20, 21, 720
28: 28, 83, 84, 85, 328
30: 30, 31, 330
33: 33, 333
38: 38, 71
40: 40, 442, 740
45: 45, 745
51: 26, 51, 52, 352
60: 60, 360
66: 66, 366
68: 68, 368
70: 70, 370
76: 76, 376
78: 78, 79, 378
81: 81, 381
90: 90, 91, 169 on weekends
92: 92, 392
94: 94, 394
105: 105, 705
108: 108, 358
111: 111, 711
115: 115, 315
119: 119, 126
120: 120, 121
150: 150, 750
165: 164, 165
180: 180, 181, 217, 780 (6/25/06)
204: 204, 754
207: 207, 757
210: 210, 710
212: 212, 312
225: 225, 226
233: 233, 761
234: 183, 234
242: 242, 243
245: 244, 245
251: 251, 252, 751
260: 260, 361
265: 265, 275
363: 353, 363
439: 439, 444
Rapids, unlike limited lines, cannot be interlined with local trips during the day, and are not part of the run requirements.
Ridership figures are the cumulative totals of the branches.
thanks for the info on the 780 you all. and no offense Hank, but i hope you’re wrong. also, which housing project do you speak of? i live near there and i’m not sure there’s such a project that would have taken parking from MTA. a couple renovations are under way with some of the buildings to turn them into lofts and what not, but no parking seems to have disappeard from the MTA’s position as far as i can tell.
Actually Tyke, I believe the parking area which Hank may be referring to (I’m guessing it’s the one south of the Hwd/Vine Metro station)will soon be home to the new W Hotel Hollywood and some other residential development.
really? the park and ride parking, or the parking lot right on the corner of selma and argyle?
Check out this post on Curbed LA: Hello W Hotel
its cool how old the reference picture they used is. the giant sunset and vine place isn’t even built yet. but whatever, thats a huge area they’re building on and with more shops/restaurants/hotel that close to the station the more it’ll be used=the later the red line will run. yeah boi.
It was described to me as a “joint development project” at Hollywood and Vine. Right now you have 717s and 780s laying over in the bus layover zone, and 710s on street. This way, it cuts down on about five buses laying over and saves the bus from turning around, at the price of buses bunching up.
ahh, well perhaps MTA can purchase one of the ten parking lots that surround that area.
Or some local buses might have to be rerouted away from Hollywood and Vine to Highland or Vermont. The Highland layover is behind Hollywood High School, while Vermont is scattered all over the place. The 204s lay over on Hollywood, while the 217s lay over on Fountain.
Hollywood and Western has its own set of problems. Residents near Garfield complained about too many buses, and now the artics on 757 take up more space. This has meant that many northbound 757s now end at Wilshire and Western, and lay over there. I have no idea where they go after the layover. I think every other or every third 757 now goes to Hollywood, but oddly I see more southbound trips north of Wilshire than northbound trips!
i see 757’s laying over at the southwest corner of franklin and western, next to the rite aid. i know they have to wait, but its funny to sit at the hollywood/western stop and look up the hill to see the big red baby boi taunting you.