Possible changes in Big Blue Bus service being explored
By Harold Lee
Oct. 27, 2004 9:00 p.m.
The Santa Monica Big Blue Bus is about to get bigger.
The transit agency is planning to expand service to accommodate
changes in ridership and consumer demands.
But before expansion and improvement plans can be submitted to
the Santa Monica City Council for approval, Big Blue Bus
representatives are looking to the community for feedback.
At one of a series of annual community meetings, representatives
from Big Blue Bus met Wednesday in Ackerman Union to discuss
changes that will be made to bus lines over the next three
years.
Big Blue Bus officials proposed modifications to the bus lines
after the transportation agency hired an outside contractor to
research and analyze each of its lines. In addition, 21-question
surveys were distributed to bus riders throughout last year.
“We conduct the annual community meetings primarily to
gather information from our riders and what they perceive their
needs are for the Big Blue Bus,” said Dan Dawson, marketing
and public information coordinator for Big Blue Bus.
While the meetings are conducted every year, this year Big Blue
Bus presented its Service Improvement Plan, which is released every
three years, and requested the community’s feedback to
incorporate into their plan.
One item of heated debate was a proposal to move weekend and
evening bus service from the bus station on Hilgard Avenue to the
turnaround near Ackerman Union out of consideration for neighbors
living near the terminal.
Some people who want the buses to continue running out of the
Hilgard bus station are worried that moving service to Ackerman
would hurt bus ridership.
“It’s really important that buses always go to the
same place at the same time,” said Erik Griswold, an urban
planner who works in Santa Monica.
The ridership surveys conducted by Big Blue Bus concluded that
the majority of riders stopping at the Hilgard terminal go to the
northeast part of campus.
Dawson said that stopping at Ackerman Union would inconvenience
thousands of riders.
“The needs of the few are overshadowing the desires of the
many,” he said.
Residents living near the bus terminal, which they say is an
increasing nuisance, originally pushed for the change.
“All we want is a weekend without noise and
pollution,” said Paul Verdon, a member of the local
Homeowner’s Association.
In addition to concerns over noise and pollution, proponents of
moving the bus service to Ackerman Union on evenings and weekends
were worried about pedestrian safety, and say there have been
instances of speeding buses nearly running down pedestrians.
Opponents to the move counter that the residents knew what to
expect when they moved near the bus terminal, which has been there
since 1929, where it started out as a bus stop and became a
terminal in 1938. The Hilgard terminal is the second-busiest bus
stop in the Big Blue Bus system.
“(Those who support the move) remind me of the folks who
move next to airports and complain about the noise,” Griswold
said.
Big Blue Bus has spoken with Chancellor Albert Carnesale, the
neighborhood association and L.A. County Supervisor Zev
Yaroslavsky, and has received permission to move additional bus
traffic to Ackerman Union. The transit agency will have to create
additional space to accommodate the bus traffic and hopes to do
this by Feb. 20, 2005.
The plans for improvement and expansion of bus service for the
rest of Big Blue Bus’s lines are still awaiting approval both
from the community and the Santa Monica City Council.
There are also plans to create an express version of Line 3,
which travels from UCLA to LAX, to add a lane only for buses on
Westwood Avenue, and to implement devices that would give the buses
traveling this “Super 3″ line priority at stoplights,
much like the devices available to police cars and ambulances.
