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ChineseSloppy seconds
Photo by Fred Camino via Flickr. This and other photos can be seen on the MetroRiderLA Flickr pool.
Earlier this week, we gave you the heads-up that LADOT is looking for help on restructuring (read: cutting) its local DASH and Commuter Express service. It is facing a $260 million deficit over 10 years, and with local and state funding drying up, LADOT is looking to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Does LADOT have a lot of unproductive services? Certainly. Will riders allow their bus routes to disappear or change? Certainly not.
What makes LADOT unique is that most of its DASH lines don’t enhance transit service as much as they overlap services. DASH routes largely overlap segments of Metro local lines. In some cases, it can help alleviate overcrowding if riders are more attracted to paying 20% of a Metro fare, and makes a world of difference for very poor riders. The flipside is that LADOT is heavily dependent on poaching existing bus lines to show planners, auditors and City Council members that the services are being used.
Extending that logic, it would follow that if LADOT had to dissolve its bus services, riders could fall back on Metro to travel. This is not economically or politically possible. Plus, LADOT is not in a position in which it can take over busier Metro lines. So what should the city do?
One idea for restructuring — and this was cleaned up to seem respectable for the public policy folks — is first, to leave the DASH branding and 25-cent fare for its core downtown service and create a separate identity for the non-downtown services with fares higher than 25 cents but less than Metro’s $1.25. The second, which will be delved on here, is for LADOT to take over Metro’s sloppy seconds.
If LADOT has a big money problem, Metro has an even bigger one. Despite being first in line at the feeding trough for local sales taxes, Metro is not immune to subsidy shortfalls and it has a bigger problem: Metro bus service is a poor value proposition.
Metro buses are very expensive to run. According to its 2007 filing (the most recent available) on the National Transit Database, Metro’s operating expense for buses is almost $117 per revenue hour. That’s one of the highest in L.A. County. There is very little Metro can do to bring down that cost. To anyone who says all Metro has to do is go strong on the unions, remember that it would take a prolonged work stoppage — and even then, the unions may still come out on top. Also, Metro is not paying all that money into payroll — most of the munis offer far superior compensation and work environment than Metro and are able to maintain bus services in the $95-$110 an hour service range.
Despite Metro’s very high hourly bus expense, on another metric the $117 is more reasonable considering that Metro has heavy passenger values. Its bus expenses are 58 cents per mile.
With a high time cost but a low productivity cost, Metro’s best suited for operating lines with heavier ridership.
These costs are also why Metro will look at every opportunity to cancel bus lines that operate every 30 minutes or less. We go through this every 6 months when Metro suggests the same crop of lines to kill and riders push back.
Well, at least for routes within L.A. city limits, LADOT should work with Metro to take over these poorly performing lines and give them a lease on life.
LADOT’s report shows a far more cost-efficient operation. All of LADOT’s bus operations are provided by private contractors, which compensate workers closer to unskilled trades rather than their public-sector cohorts. (Most of the LADOT contractors are union, too.) LADOT’s per-hour costs are about $59.50 per revenue hour. Its operating expense is 55 cents per mile, close to Metro’s, but its systemwide productivity is 41 passengers an hour.
These are crude figures, though, as this mixes DASH local and Commuter Express rush-hour services. Any cuts to DASH would have far more adverse effects on its riders than cuts to the commuter buses.
So, with these cost profiles, Metro should seek out LADOT to operate services within the city of Los Angeles that could be operated more affordably or be saved from euthanasia. Metro would pay for any transitionary costs.
In turn, LADOT would have to restructure its services to avoid skimming productive Metro services. For instance, in South L.A., DASH buses almost completely duplicate Line 40 services along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the form of the King East and Leimert/Slauson lines. On Vermont Avenue, Line 204 is duplicated by the Southeast and Vermont/Main lines.
Rather than canceling the DASH lines, these lines can be restructured. Martin Luther King and Vermont are saturated with busy local (and Rapid) lines. All a DASH bus does is take a $1.25 passenger away to the 25-cent bus. Take the DASH service on Martin Luther King and have LADOT service replace the low-performing Line 102. As for the Vermont services, keep the existing loop services but move the buses along Hoover Street — a wide residential and commercial road between bus services on Vermont and Figueroa Street. The other side of the loop would take over services now provided by Line 48, a less productive tail attached to the more productive Melrose Avenue and Temple Street trunk of Line 10.
Riders will still have existing bus services, and more importantly, won’t lose them. Riders shouldn’t lose them.
This is not a complete entry as to how LADOT can realign its services to better meet the needs of bus riders. But the complete entry is coming. This is MetroRiderLA after all, and one key part of the Transit-Oriented Lifestyle (TM) is to keep Los Angeles beautiful. In this case, it’s time to get out the brooms, pressure washers and pooper scoopers to clean up another mess. It’s time for another installment of …
OPEN SOURCE TRANSIT!!!
Throughout next week, I will turn my attention away from MetroRiderLA and focus on creating Google Maps of some suggested route changes I would recommend to LADOT. Leave your comments on the post and they’ll be sent to public officials. Your feedback is important.
Do come back for the conclusion of the World Series to see if either the New York Yankees or the Philadelphia Phillies win the Fall Classic (of Transit).
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
Sell the DASH lines to Metro. Simple solution.
Wad:
I have an idea… Let’s have Metro take over the Commuter Express from LADOT and have DASH take over the low performing local Metro routes in Downtown and South LA. The Commuter Express services probably break even right now (I’m just guessing) because of the low frequency and predictable ridership. If Metro take over these route, they may actually be able to increase frequency and provide better service (some route could potentially support all-day service). At the very minimum, using existing Metro buses for Commuter Express will cut maintenance costs and LADOT can eliminate its dedicated fleet of express buses.
The trickier part is DASH taking over some Metro routes. This will require some more analysis but I think with Expo line opening, there is some opportunity to re-cast DASH as a feeder service to Expo/Gold lines rather than just loop service. But I agree with your overall statement that DASH should focus in Downtown (or near Downtown).
Interesting idea about the Commuter Express. Route 549 has always struck me as one of the most overlooked buses anywhere–it’s the only direct link between the San Gabriel Valley and the San Fernando Valley via the heavily-trafficked 134 freeway corridor, yet it doesn’t even run mid-day service. I bet most people who would take it don’t even know it exists. I wonder how it would fare re-branded as a Metro route (I know I’d ride it!).
Wenda, you are absolutely right about Line 549 being one of those best-kept secret lines. It’s key, especially in a place like L.A., to have lines around the periphery. Some are crucial, like 761, while others, like 549, may not have much of a chance outside of rush hour.
Metro had looked into running an express service along 134, between North Hollywood and Pasadena, but it would have been duplicative of the existing 549 — which ended up serving NoHo instead.
Generally, for the comments here saying Metro should pick up the LADOT service, don’t bet on that happening in many cases.
Any service transfer will be Metro shedding lines, not absorbing them. As I’ve shown here, LADOT’s operating cost is half of Metro’s. If LADOT can’t operate a service economically, Metro would be twice as expensive. That’s why I have proposed LADOT to take some lines off Metro’s hands.
LADOT also has a better customer image than Metro. If LADOT were to cancel its flagship DASH services in downtown and Metro were to offer a 25 cent fare within downtown L.A., do you think riders will want to take Metro buses? DASH has a good brand name, though I have suggested that LADOT reserve the DASH name for downtown L.A. and call the small-bus service throughout L.A. under a new brand name.