News

A $29 million DASH hole

Contributed by Wad on March 15th, 2007 at 1:30 am

[tags]los angeles, ladot, dash, laura chick[/tags]

Los Angeles Daily News headline about audit
The March 14 Los Angeles Daily News has the audit as its banner A1 story.
Credit: Newseum

Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick released an audit of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, finding fault with the organizational structure, document reporting and poor oversight of DASH performance and costs.

By 2009, DASH would run a $29 million deficit. Seven years later, the shortfall can grow to $200 million. The audit recommends setting stricter route performance benchmarks, since routes were often created at the request of council members without regard to the costs or effectiveness of the new lines.

The audit made management recommendations, but did not evaluate performance. The audit did not look at the routes and note that the majority of DASH routes overlap Metro bus service. This results in a duplication of services and leads to artificially high productivity by poaching Metro bus ridership.

The audit was widely reported:

At least one good thing that comes out of this audit: finally being able to use “DASH hole” in a headline. :)

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There are 7 Responses to “A $29 million DASH hole”:

  1. Hmm….how about a .50 cost per ride, not this ridiculously cheap .25 per ride?

    Comment by Sodha on March 15th, 2007 at 10:31 am »Reply« resta suma

  2. I wonder about the price too… I didn’t even factor in LADOT Dash services when moving to LA, but after three weeks here, without Dash, I’d have to reconsider living here. I work in the City Hall environs, and to avoid having to take the wheelchair back up the hill to Civic Center, I commute *to* work via Purple to Civic Center, but take the Dash D to Union Station on the way home. No hill, no problem. I’ve taken other Dash service to Metro Center to go to the bank on the way home, or a quick lift to Pershing without having to go into the subway.

    And I won’t even be done once I’m done with this internship… my bar course is at Loyola Law, which means… wait for it… I’ll be taking the Dash Echo Park from Wilshire/Westlake to Loyola and back.

    The only problem? I don’t pay them a dime for this service. I have a metro pass. Even though I take Dash more often than metro busses (and subway even more than Dash, though).

    With our spread-out city and horrible hills, though, without Dash, I think I’d be very tired of that hill back to Civic or the long walk to Union by now. VERY tired of it. I don’t think it’s a transit luxury item; I think the downtown system would start to fray without Dash service.

    I gotta wonder if they’re getting a sufficient transfer from MTA and the City County… the people who use Dash are very rarely only taking that service, they’re using it for a transfer. I once wondered if these shuttles ever collected more than $15-$20 in cash fares per day.

    I’m not up for transferring the routes to the MTA though… Dash provides short-haul service with frequent stops (sometimes twice per long block) and is especially accommodating to riders (i.e. stopping when there’s no stop etc.). This isn’t the 460 to Anaheim, or Metro Rapid, this is a community-based shuttle. I worry that Metro wouldn’t want to run it that way. I’m *dead certain* that there are busses that run all of the same routes that my Dash routes do, but they wouldn’t serve the same necessary purpose.

    Comment by Aaron on March 15th, 2007 at 1:01 pm »Reply« resta suma

  3. Aaron, if anything, Metro would transfer more routes to DASH, not the other way around.

    And DASH originally started downtown, and was called Mini-Ride when Metro’s predecessor, RTD, operated it. In the late 1980s, DASH routes began to sprout up throughout the city.

    Comment by Wad on March 15th, 2007 at 2:30 pm »Reply« resta suma

  4. You tell it started downtown: DASH is an acronym. It means Downtown Area Short Hop. It was also called DASH because it was run by LADOT. Get it? DOT/DASH? Well, nobody uses Morse Code anymore, so I shouldn’t expect anyone to get it. It’s a pretty obscure joke these days.

    Comment by ScottMercer on March 15th, 2007 at 4:18 pm »Reply« resta suma

  5. I’ve never used the DASH and probably won’t until it’s an open air trolley-like thing you can hop onto while it’s moving. Without that option it’s just a compromised bus.

    Comment by JustMyNipples on March 16th, 2007 at 2:12 am »Reply« resta suma

  6. JustMyNipples wrote:
    I’ve never used the DASH and probably won’t until it’s an open air trolley-like thing you can hop onto while it’s moving. Without that option it’s just a compromised bus.
    If DASH ran those faux trolleys, as you seem to suggest, I would not only stop riding but actively work to dismantle the network.

    Faux trolleys are an abomination and an insult.

    It isn’t a trolley unless it has tracks and steel wheels. Period.

    Comment by Wad on March 16th, 2007 at 4:08 pm »Reply« resta suma

  7. 29 million, huh? How does an organization lose that kind of money and call it “business as usual”? If my household were to lose 29 hundred dollars, a lot of questions would get asked and heads might roll… Yet the same people who allowed this to happen, sit quietly and draw enormous salaries. Something’s definitely wrong with that picture…

    Comment by Larry on March 19th, 2007 at 7:14 am »Reply« resta suma