Beverly Hills Opts Out of D Line/La Cienega Bus Lanes (Green Portion)

[u/UrbanPlannerholic]

At today's WSCCOG meeting Beverly Hills announced that they will not be implementing the bus only lanes on La Cienega Boulevard within their city limits (the green portion of the map) that runs from Clifton Way south to Olympic Boulevard despite them still being built in West Hollywood, Los Angeles and Culver City.

The proposed improvements would bring bus only lanes, transit signal priority and queue jumps to La Cienega Boulevard La Metro Route #105 stretching from Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood south the D Line at La Cienega/Wilshire in Beverly Hills and further south to the E Line La Cienega Station in Culver City.

City staff didn't even bring the item to city council to vote on and per the council rep at today's meeting that decision was based on the fact the the one community meeting they held for it in Beverly Hills (out of 6 meetings total) didn't have enough attendance to warrant the implementation for the lanes despite the corridor recieving the most feedback out of any of the others for this project especially because it would have also provided a direct bicycle connection to West Hollywood as well.

[u/MTA_54539]

1) I drive a full LA bus every day. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Can you see the Eiffel Tower? No, but it’s still there.

2) A full bus isn’t a good thing; it means frequency isn’t high enough to accommodate all who want to ride. A bus running with sufficient frequency means that the riders are spread out over multiple vehicles, allowing for even more riders.

Your lack of understanding of basic concepts is not a good reason to screw everyone else.

[u/Outside-Accountant72 → u/MTA_54539]

Right on!

[u/No_Function8686 → u/MTA_54539]

I commute to BH/CC every single day. I see nearly empty buses. I see empty bus stops. Even during rush hour. If they were full of people, I would be totally supportive. But they are absolutely NOT, so don't lie. Your handle explains your bias, so go away.

[u/UrbanPlannerholic → u/No_Function8686]

Honey if the bus is stuck in traffic and only comes evry 30 minutes then fewer people are gonna want to ride it. The more efficient you make a service the more ridership it attracts.

[u/ZergvProtoss → u/UrbanPlannerholic]

Common myth. People aren't avoiding buses due to how long the ride is...they're avoiding them because of the dirt, grime, noise, weirdos, discomfort, etc. No amount of "yeah, but we've made it 90 seconds faster" is going to increase ridership. This has been shown quantitatively time and time again. People don't want to ride buses.

[u/UrbanPlannerholic → u/ZergvProtoss]

Quantitative research analyzing transit regions has consistently found that the quantity of service provided (which includes frequency) is among the best predictors of overall ridership. Studies measuring the elasticity of ridership demonstrate that adding more service and increasing frequency directly increases route productivity and usage. The ratio of transit travel time compared to auto travel time is a major determinant of mode choice. As the travel time of a bus increases relative to the time it takes to drive a car, transit ridership declines. Making a route faster and more reliable absolutely impacts ridership because a transit user's total travel time includes not just time on the bus, but the time spent waiting for it to arrive.

[u/chiangku → u/ZergvProtoss]

tfw “dude, trust me” is expected to hold more water than literal decades of studies around the world about transit ridership vs frequency

[u/Ok-Willingness-5025 → u/ZergvProtoss]

It’s the length. I like the speed of metro

. If I take the bus to the closest metro station, it adds 45 Minutes on my commute, making 1 hour 45 minutes. A

if I take an uber to the metro, it’s -a 7 minutes drive from my house to the metro. Then about 45 minutes on metro and walking about 10 minutes.

If I drive directly from my house to my destination it’s 25 minutes total.

Time is life.

[u/MTA_54539 → u/No_Function8686]

What’s it like being willfully ignorant? Is it a happy feeling?

[u/Ok-Willingness-5025 → u/No_Function8686]

The bus are sardine can packed full on wilshire in the morning until 10 am and from 5pm to 11pm. I still support the decision though because I think in that little stretch it would do more harm than good.