German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
ChineseThe Miami Option
[tags]los angeles, san fernando valley, orange line, bus rapid transit, miami, miami-dade transit, google maps[/tags]
This Orange Line articulated bus, at 60 feet, is the longest a bus could be by law. But for Metro, the biggest is not big enough. Now it will take 65 feet, or maybe even 80 feet (!), to handle the Valley busway’s loads.
Credit: Mitch Glaser, Paradox Unbound, via Flickr
The Metro Orange Line has been having growing pains. First, at 25,000, Metro claims the cross-San Fernando Valley busway is beyond its original capacity, requiring custom-built 65- and 80-foot buses that likely will not see a market outside of L.A. Second, Metro slowed down the Orange Line due to accidents, resulting in an end-to-end trip time of 44 minutes. Now, Metro is considering adding an express version of the Orange Line similar to the “fast” trains on the Gold Line, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.
But, like the Gold Line, the express would speed up service by only 5 minutes while inconveniencing local riders.
There is another way, though. Express buses would not be needed. Metro can use buses it has now and skip the procurement process. And the busway would become more attractive to both Red Line and San Fernando Valley riders by eliminating one transfer. How can this be done?
Consider the Miami Option.
This is the present-day Orange Line; the “before” picture. Click on the jump to see the Orange Line busway South Florida style.
Miami-Dade Transit operates the South Miami-Dade Busway, a service very similar to the Orange Line. Both routes have an anchor terminal connecting the busway with a rail station. MDT and Metro both took over abandoned railroad rights of way and converted them into roads exclusive for buses. Both run parallel to busy highways.
One key difference: the Orange Line is a bus that acts like train — even in its downsides. The Orange Line has the capacity constraints of buses, and it is tethered to its guideway like a train. Most Orange Line riders have to connect with a second bus, adding a transfer penalty. Transfers are even less appealing since many connecting north-south Valley lines run every 30 minutes or less.
Click on the image for a detail of the routes serving the South Miami-Dade Busway. For a complete Miami system map PDF, click here.
South Miami-Dade County is similar to the San Fernando Valley, but MDT uses its busway more productively. Several low-frequency local and express buses use the common guideway to provide high-frequency service and then break away to serve local streets. This is how most busways, including the two others in L.A, are used throughout the world.
The Orange Line can be re-purposed to provide local<->guideway service. Operationally, the buses already run in the street in Warner Center, and during accidents and last year’s repaving, buses can exit the busway and run on local streets.
Here’s how existing Orange Line service would be restructured for the Miami Option:
- The NABI 60-BRT articulated buses would be replaced by an equal number of NABI 45-BRT buses. The 8000-series buses have low floors and wide doors, and are only five feet longer than a typical local bus, so less space is wasted. Several of these red buses are running on non-Rapid routes daily, and the buses’ unique appearance would be ideal for “branding” the local<->busway lines.
- Low-frequency lines in the West Valley would be rerouted to run on the Orange Line and serve the North Hollywood Station. The combined service of these lines would match existing Orange Line schedules.
- Existing busway frequencies (4 minutes peak, 10 minutes off-peak) would be maintained by a combination of several local bus services.
- Some local services would be upgraded operate every 30 minutes during mid-days Monday through Friday. Other low-frequency lines would operate on the busway only during rush hours.
- The existing Orange Line service would still remain as an all-stops service. It would run between busway-local trips. Service would be more frequent on weekends, to fill the gaps by low-frequency locals.
- Along the busway, passengers would buy tickets and board through all doors. On surface streets, riders would pay their fare aboard the bus and board through the front door.
The Valley’s busier north-south bus roads – Van Nuys, Sepulveda and Reseda boulevards — would still stay locals. Infrequent bus lines would be the primary beneficiaries by reducing the transfer penalty, and potentially fortifying ridership to improve local frequencies in the future.
The Miami Option may even be enticing to the Martin Korns of the Valley. Taking public transportation to public transportation would not be so insulting.
Enough talk. The Miami Option has been explained in great detail. Here’s how a Valley grid would look like. What a wonderful tool Google Maps is.
Now here’s the after picture. To get up close and interactive with the actual Google Map, click here.
The Orange Line would now host several bus lines. Each line would operate every 30 minutes during peak hours, with fewer services available off-peak. The following lines would now operate on the busway, with bold routes running to North Hollywood mid-days and weekends:
- 152-It serves all Orange Line stations. The Fallbrook Avenue segment would be broken away from Roscoe Boulevard and receive a new line number. Western terminal would be at Roscoe and Topanga Canyon boulevards.
- 236-The Balboa Boulevard service would serve all stations between North Hollywood and Sepulveda. It would serve Balboa Station on the street.
- 237-Same stations as 236.
- 242-The Tampa Avenue service would service all stations between North Hollywood and Tampa Stations. It also serves Tampa Station on the street.
- 243-The Winnetka Avenue service would service all stations between North Hollywood and Reseda Boulevard. It also serves the Tampa and Pierce College stations on Tampa and Winnetka avenues, respectively.
- 244-It serves all Orange Line stations. It would also serve De Soto Station on the street.
- 245-It serves all Orange Line stations. It will terminate at Warner Center Transit Hub outside of peak hours.
- 645-It serves all Orange Line stations. The line would be shortened to terminate at Valley Circle Boulevard and Gilmore Avenue.
- 901-This is the present-day all-stops Orange Line. It would not operate during peak hours; it would run mid-days, weekends and after 9 p.m.
More notes are available by clicking a bus line or station on Google Maps.
Each of these routes would operate every half-hour. During peak hours, the combination of lines yields service every four minutes. Off-peak, service would be every 8-10 minutes. The routes are selected to minimize disruption on all points of the line.
And for a riders’-eye view on the South Miami-Dade Busway and other transportation-related topics, visit Transit Miami.
Discussion
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
So you’re saying that with your idea,
there’s going to be no service on De Soto, Winnetka, Tampa and Balboa south of the orange line? What if people want to go to Ventura Blvd - they’re going to walk from the Orange Line?
Your idea makes more sense with the more heavily traveled lines. For example, a plurality of Orange Line riders transfer to or from Van Nuys Blvd services - why not have every other Line 233 go down the Orange Line?
But don’t forget the fare collection discrepancies — Orange Line riders were trained (no pun intended) to use their line like a Metro Rail line, with prepaid tickets and no fareboxes in the buses. The local lines that would use the Orange line as a trunk would still need standard farebox collection. Granted, Metro would inevitably have to embark on not only a feasibility study for this, but a ridership study to see which existing lines (or perhaps new ones) could share the trunk route.
The Orange Bus Line exists only to let the Orange light rail line camel get its nose in the tent.
No, Chris, the proposals I outlined have all buses serve Ventura as well as the Orange Line, except for Line 245 since Line 150 duplicates service on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.
And Rob, the Orange Line prevents light rail, or pushes off the prospects for decades. Orange Line is doing well, but there was already $400 million sunk into the cost. That cost will be added into converting the service to light rail. The other problem is what to do for 4-5 years while the right of way is shut down.
And keep in mind that the Orange Line was built for Zev. He wanted a scale replica of a Curitiba busway and nothing but. He would have sat on his hands if it were rail.
Still, it is troubling that a busway corridor tops out at 20,000 boardings. There are over a dozen local bus lines that do better than that, and the best they can get is limited-stop service.
I’m not being a negativst jerk here, just a realist. We all know the MTA is steel on steel addicted. I am just asking you to look at the design specs for “roadbed” and intersection design. The whole shebang was built for easy conversion to LR. The intent of the alignment, the insistence upon a continious r-o-w, the backbone style bus to “Orange Line” configuration.
And light rail, or heavy rail, is what it should have been built to be. Buses cannot handle the capacity needed here.
Converting the San Fernando busway to rail would be like building the Wilshire subway down Venice. Just because a right of way exists does not mean its suited for rail. I’d much rather we adopt a Miami-style option for the busway and put the east-west SFV valley line where it belongs - under Ventura Blvd. That’s where the jobs and the regional trip generators are.
Damien, thanks for supporting the Miami Option.
I agree that Ventura would be a far better option for rail. It’s a built-up corridor, it’s the exoskeleton of the San Fernando Valley bus grid, and the Rapid bus has done amazing things with ridership on Ventura.
But, that doesn’t matter much. The right of way has already been used for bus service, and building anything on the right of way is cheaper and easier than Ventura Boulevard. A subway would be ideal, since a straight tunnel can make a trip faster than the serpentine surface street. However, Ventura does not have neither the population nor ridership density to support heavy rail. It would not compete well federally or statewide.
It would be a multibillion-dollar project, and there would need to be purely local funding for it.
Wad,
I agree that the population and ridership density is not there on Ventura Blvd., but if a subway came, would those two items follow?
P.S. I am a regular 750 rider. I wish it ran more at night:(
Let’s hold the phone.
I used to live two blocks from Ventura Blvd. Ventura Blvd. is clearly dense enough to support a subway, at least east of Sepulveda. In that area, 4-5 story condo and apartment buildings are the norm along most major north/south arteries and some smaller streets, especially 2-3 blocks both north and south of Ventura. Single family houses still exist in these areas, but are clearly in the minority, and gradually diminishing, slowly being replaced by more condo buildings.
If Ventura is not urbanized enough for a subway right now, it will be in another decade or two, which is when a Ventura blvd. subway would be installed.
Further east, say, in Encino and Tarzana, there are fewer apartment blocks, but there are still some, and I shouldn’t have to mention to critical mass that has been built up (and will continue to be built up) in the area of Warner Center. WC is clearly one of the major “activity centers” in the entire, and the focal point of the western SFV. A Ventura Blvd. subway should go on the list for the far future.
Branching out the Orange Line can be done and done right now for very little money. Maybe for uniformity’s sake, the Metroliners will have to go back to the driver taking fares and giving out tickets. I wouldn’t cry over that option, and I don’t think it would delay the buses that much, compared with all the benefits the Miami Option would bring.
Whoops, I mean further WEST in Encino and Tarzana.
Scott Mercer wrote:
Ventura Blvd. is clearly dense enough to support a subway, at least east of Sepulveda. In that area, 4-5 story condo and apartment buildings are the norm along most major north/south arteries … If Ventura is not urbanized enough for a subway right now, it will be in another decade or two, which is when a Ventura blvd. subway would be installed.
The Red Line was designed for heavy rail tolerances. And because subway will be so expensive, it would need a tremendous amount of ridership to justify its expense, far beyond the standard >50,000 boarding threshold for heavy rail.
Only two places in the county have the sufficient land-use and ridership density to warrant subway service: Wilshire Boulevard and Vermont Avenue.
Parts of Ventura have the population density to warrant rail service, but not ridership density. The 150/750 corridor carries about 18,000 boardings a weekday. That’s a very good number for the Valley, but south of the hill that’s an above-average line. It’s no Wilshire, which needs the equivalent of a whole division to maintain its service levels.
Ventura’s got a long way to go before it’s ever at that point. And it will likely never get there.
Scott Mercer wrote:
Branching out the Orange Line can be done and done right now for very little money. Maybe for uniformity’s sake, the Metroliners will have to go back to the driver taking fares and giving out tickets. I wouldn’t cry over that option, and I don’t think it would delay the buses that much, compared with all the benefits the Miami Option would bring.
This is essentially what the Miami Option is about, except the busway would lose the Metroliners and gain the 45-footers instead.
The 45-footers, which are no longer being manufactured, are “BRT-ready”. They have low floors and both doors are wide. They can also be uniquely identified by riders. Plus, I’ve selected the lines I did above for two reasons:
1. The transfer penalty is far worse for infrequent routes than the streets with frequent north-south service, such as Van Nuys, Sepulveda and Reseda boulevards. At least this way, 30-minute service on the routes listed can provide a trunk headway that matches the Orange Line now, and riders can better plan their trips while reducing a transfer.
2. This would “prime the pump” for ridership on the infrequent routes that are near-impossible to grow. At a trunk ridership of 25,000, the busway productivity would essentially “cover” the unproductive local segments. After all, doesn’t it strike anyone as weird that the Valley had to allocate a very high amount of service hours on a new line while leaving connecting north-south frequencies bare? Instead, there would still be fast busway service and local riders receive improved service through a frequency dividend.
Zach Behrens wrote:
I agree that the population and ridership density is not there on Ventura Blvd., but if a subway came, would those two items follow?
Not necessarily.
L.A. is not Portland. Metro has no power over land use, so it wouldn’t receive a density “upside” from operating a service.
I’m not particularly bullish on the prospects of added Ventura density. The Valley’s most powerful homeowner’s associations are very close to Ventura, and are remarkably effective at blocking change. They had almost gotten away with blocking the Orange Line, but Zev effectively mobilized the Valley by framing the busway as a “fair share” issue.
And I could name other examples of the imbalance between transportation and land-use changes:
1. The Blue Line managed to become a ridership monster, quadrupling in 15 years, yet all but the extreme ends of the line remain depressed. Long Beach remains oblivious as to how the Blue Line revitalized its downtown, and could have had a linear corridor on Long Beach Boulevard, but instead keeps the street as a zone of decline.
2. The Green Line is similar, but the land uses around a freeway attract automotive, rather than pedestrian, amenities. And it’s even amazing that the Green Line does so well even though it misses more important destinations than it serves — and I don’t mean LAX, either.
3. The subway revitalized areas it ran through, mainly because construction nearly destroyed them. But the high ridership is no surprise, since it was connecting neighborhoods that already had the highest transit usage in the county to begin with.
4. The Gold Line is a contrarian example. The existence of the train line has seen the most rapid and appreciable returns in property values out of the four lines. Look at the prices for a house in northeast L.A. or South or regular Pasadena. It’s common to boast proximity to Gold Line access. Yet not only has the Gold Line failed ridership expectations — badly — but no other rail line has seen ridership stagnate this long.
Only the Harbor Transitway has seen such a major transit investment do so little. But the latter has the stigma of local buses, the same economically depressed conditions of the Blue Line and the same freeway-as-land-use-imbalance of the Green Line. So there are mitigating factors. The Gold Line did most things right and failed.
However, Ventura does not have neither the population nor ridership density to support heavy rail.
There are so many factors that go into the ridership of a line and population and existing bus ridership (which is what I assume you mean by “ridership density”) are only a couple…albeit important.
Consider the Wilshire Corridor, which only has two patches of mid-high density between Koreatown and Westwood. The bulk of the corridor in this portion is surrounded by R1. Yet there is loads of ridership, because of the offices, shopping/tourist attractions and regional trips via the corridor.
The same is true for the Ventura corridor, which along with Van Nuys Blvd has the highest concentration of employment in the SFV and connects several major centers. That’s where the ridership is.
Additionally, a drastic increase in ridership can be found by extending a Ventura Blvd line east of Universal City. The Gold Line of the Get LA Moving Plan connects all of the major economic centers north of Hollywood - Downtown Pasadena, Downtown Glendale, Burbank Studios, Universal City, Sherman Oaks, Encino, Warner Center, etc. That is a line with plenty of regional trip draws. I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest it would smash the 50K riders/day benchmark for grade separated rail out of the water.
Additionally, the most expensive aspects of tunneling are upfront cost and stations. Lengthen the projects and we benefit from economies of scale, but that lots of dedicated capital we don’t currently have. Nonetheless, in this respect don’t blame the mode, blame our financing structure.
With respect to the stations the station boxes, at $35-100M each they are the bulk of the cost in tunneling, not the actual tunnel which typically comes in at about $35-45M/mile. So one possible way to reduce cost is to reduce the number of stations, which incidentally reduces travel time and MAY actually increase ridership on the line, since it parallels the 101.
By the way, I’m not pulling these numbers out of the sky these are actual MTA construction costs for the past two tunneling projects: Eastside Gold and MOS-3 Red.
And the discussion of cost savings in single-bore tunneling and open cut stations for another post.
Finally, with the the cost of light rail now going through the roof (project Expo Phase 2 cost: $985M) at-grade LRT’s primary benefit (reduced cost) is nearly eliminated.
I’m one of the few that lives near the intersection of two streets that serves the Orange Line (Van Nuys and Woodman); and the lack of frequent buses on Woodman, along with the fact that there are two Metro Local sections on it so there are no continous buses that goes from my house to the Orange Line station on Woodman, does have a psychological effect and keeps me away from using Woodman, and instead use the heavily travelled Van Nuys corridor. The only time I’d go to the Woodman station is if I biked there, which incidentally is about as fast as a Local bus.
Ambitious concept, Wad.
Will never happen (because the busway is Zev’s baby and he won’t ever let a mix of services on it), but interesting.
The other problem is that, with Metro’s continuing budget problems after ten years of the consent decree burning through reserve funds, the additional hours that this would require (I did a quick calculation and your throughrouted service would use more revenue service hours than the present Orange Line) is an absolute killer.
And, as a governance councilmember, I would be hiding under the table during all of the angry public comments at the required hearing before the restructuring, because — despite your reassurances — I don’t see how you would make this work without diverting the 236-237, 242-243, and 244-245 away from Ventura Blvd. connections.
Like I said, interesting, but a no-starter.
Oh, and a comment for Zach: When 750 was introduced in 2000, it did run until late at night, but there wasn’t enough ridership to support both it and the 150, so its hours were cutback about a year later. (That also says something about the viability of a subway under Ventura Blvd., for those who have hijacked this discussion into that direction.)
Not to mention the fact that the Orange Line has taken away ridership from Line 750.
There’s no possible way that Metro is going to build a rail line so near the Orange Line when there’s so many places in the service area that don’t have any rapid transit service. Why don’t we get united and go after a rapid transit line between the valley and West LA? It boggles my mind how such a connection never comes up in the Metro Long Range Plan.
Kymberleigh Richards wrote:
Will never happen (because the busway is Zev’s baby and he won’t ever let a mix of services on it), but interesting.
I could understand with your argument below, but this statement is very troubling.
If I read you correctly, you are saying 1/13 of the Metro board lords over this project and micromanages standards of service. This service is within Los Angeles city limits, and four L.A. members serve on the board and must defer to Zev.
This is a crisis.
The other problem is that … the additional hours that this would require (I did a quick calculation and your throughrouted service would use more revenue service hours than the present Orange Line) is an absolute killer.
Can you e-mail me a spreadsheet (if you did it) along with the cost figures for the Miami Option lines?
What has me curious is where Metro came up with the service hours for the Orange Line in 2005. It was a heavy service burden heaped atop the local service grid. Since it was a bus service, these hours can be rearranged and allocated to the local services.
Or is it expensive because it demands too high service levels (30 minutes instead of 50-60) on unproductive lines?
And, if you saw the Google Map, I was mindful of not eliminating the Ventura Boulevard connection to those local lines. The only other way to keep Ventura and Orange Line service is to dogleg routes — first hitting Ventura, turning around and then getting on the busway — but I don’t see how buses can turn around.
This is an issue for 242 and 243. If there’s a way a bus can stay on Winnetka or Tampa avenues without having to touch the other street, that could save time.
All other routes except 236 and 237 would cover the full Orange Line route, and only 245 would lose a direct connection to Ventura (part of Topanga Canyon still has 150).
You might also save money by breaking off the Fallbrook Avenue part of Line 152 from the more important Roscoe-Vineland route.
The plan is just too damned confusing, unfortunately. People have been programmed to think of the Orange Line like a train. With the upcoming service cuts, the “Bronze Line” will finally be implemented in June 2008, meaning all passengers will have to transfer at Artesia Transit Center or Manchester Station. There is a good likelihood that the budget cuts may force MTA off the El Monte Busway (to El Monte) completely. Thus, I tend to agree with Ms. Richards that this idea is a non starter.
The one thing that I will add, is that because all 14 miles of this busway is at-grade unless Metro eliminates the signal priority the lowest headway that can be produced is every 3 minutes. I personally wished this should have been rail or at the very least for a busway it should have been a track guided busway that can enable the “train-ing” of two articulated buses doubling capacity and fooling the signals, the same thing Light Rail would have done with a 2 or 3 car LRV train.
Wad:
In a word, yes.
Jerard:
That, unfortunately, is LADOT’s doing, not Metro’s.