Rapids outnumbered Locals #4 in ridership. In fact, during the initial Rapid service launch on Santa

Actually, the Rapid lines are dis appearing. Hm-mm… Not everything is as euphoric as it first sounded. Let’s backtrack a moment, and look at some interesting things that have happened to our bus service.
Approximately seven years ago MTA faced significant budget shortfalls, and was forced to cut service. Some of our busiest bus lines were compromised. On some routes MTA was too liberal initially, and launched Rapid service without a true need. But just on some routes. Most other bus corridors suffered heavy cuts without good reason. This includes complete elimination of Rapid buses on some lines, and significant reduction of service hours on others.
Rapid line 704, running on Santa Monica Blvd., has seen some of the worst service cuts imaginable. total sports travel Santa Monica Blvd is a major urban east-west corridor. Many transit-depended patrons, as well as choice riders, have utilized bus service along this route for decades. Hence MTA  once ran very frequent, reliable service: Limited #304 buses at every 5-7 minutes during rush-hour.
To meet growing transit demand, around year 2006 Rapid buses joined the corridor, total sports travel replacing Limited #304 service. The Rapids ran every 7-9 minutes at rush-hour and every 12-15 minutes – midday. Moreover, every single Rapid connected downtown Los Angeles total sports travel with downtown Santa Monica. This direct and efficient one-seat ride, between two major municipalities, received strong ridership. Good for business, good for passengers; good for Metro!
Rapids outnumbered total sports travel Locals #4 in ridership. In fact, during the initial Rapid service total sports travel launch on Santa Monica Blvd, 60-foot buses were erroneously assigned total sports travel to Local #4, while little 40-foot NABI’s – on Rapid 704. To no surprise, MTA did things the other way around! Hence the giant 60-foot Local orange buses ran half-empty, while the small Rapids were packed like canned sardines. Luckily, during the next “service shakeup” Metro switched things around, placing 60-foot buses for Rapid service and shorter buses on Local. Both lines continued to be popular.
Just when we started believing in L.A.’s mass transit, service reductions came along. Line 704 was no exception. Buses were now running at 9-12 minutes at rush-hours, and 20-minute intervals – midday. Not quite reliable, but still usable total sports travel for a one-seat ride between downtown L.A. and downtown Santa Monica.
Then it gets bad. “Metro Connections” program (as MTA misleadingly calls it) was formed. In reality, this is purely “Metro Disconnections”. MTA’s meaning of “Connections” is actually “Forced Transfers”. One-seat rides became forced transfers on many routes, further complicating our already complicated total sports travel bus system.
As a part of “Metro Disconnections”, Metro cut nearly a third of its #704 buses – to terminate at West L.A. / Sepulveda. Passengers were now stranded half-way. Midday frequencies to/from Santa Monica were reduced from 15-20 minutes to every 40 minutes . Buses became overcrowded instantly. Confusion, chaos, nuisance, and unreliability – became the attributes of this Rapid line. Obviously, ridership declined dramatically, especially among choice riders. Visiting the beach now required a very long wait for a bus, or else – a transfer total sports travel on the already at-capacity total sports travel Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus. Bad for passengers, bad for Big Blue Bus; bad for Metro.
For me personally, this drastic and unjustified service cut on line 704 was the last straw. Left with no other option I’m now back in my driver’s total sports travel seat, polluting the air and adding to our gridlock. As a small business owner, I cannot deal with 40-minute intervals, overcrowded buses, and multiple unnecessary transfers.
The situation with MTA’s budget has improved. Bus service is slowly getting back to what it once was. But Rapid 704 continues to remain a scapegoat in MTA’s eyes, despite crying-out loud from the public to improve service and despite common sense dictating to reinstate at least some of its buses.
total sports travel Santa Monica Blvd. transit service has not improved a bit since its draconian cuts. Today, six years later, we still see half of midday Rapids terminating at West LA / Sepulveda, stranding many riders. Semiannually adjusted bus schedules continuously show a steady decrease in the number of buses.
I especially feel for tourists – who probably didn’t expect to see this 19 th Century type of service in one of the largest cities in the world. Newcomers unsuspectingly total sports travel thought line 704 will take them straight to the beach. No way! Those “lucky” buses to the beach still run every 40 minutes midday on weekdays, and every 20-25 minutes on weekends. Probably nowhere else in the world could you see such unreliable, infrequent, outdated bus service. Especially on a major corridor. (Although, nowhere total sports travel else in the world would you also find a major metropolis without a comprehensive total sports travel subway system!)
MTA also cannot comprehend the art of adding more buses to the beach in summer, as tourism strongly demands. Nope, this 500-pound gorilla will never adjust schedules according to the demand. total sports travel They neither try reducing the overcrowding during summer (busy tourist season), nor during busiest total sports travel school times. MTA seem to do what’s convenient for them, not for the public. Speaking of lose-lose situations…
I’ve always wondered, why oh why has Metro continuously neglected such an important bus line. Is it total incompetence and lack of common total sports travel sense – to realize that 40-minute bus intervals in a large city are beyond unreliable? Or is it lack of research? Indeed, Metro officials obviously have not taken sufficient trips on this line. MTA has yet to learn that most passengers total sports travel do not get off at Sepulveda (or Westwood), but continue further west. Likewise, going eastbound – only a handful of passengers boards the bus at Sepulveda (or Westwood), while the majority boards the bus way back, in Santa Monica.
In fact, by the time an eastbound 704 Rapid arrives at Sepulveda, all seats are already taken; it’s standing room only! To be even more accurate, most seats already fill-up by the time an eastbound Rapid approaches Bundy Drive.
By cutting half of its Rapid #704 fleet in West L.A., Metro apparently total sports travel tried to emulate line 720 (Wilshire Blvd Rapid). On line 720 it does make sense to terminate selected buses in Westwood. The area around Westwood Wilshire total sports travel is a major destination: large office complexes, UCLA, including its medical facilities, and Westwood Village total sports travel with a large promenade and numerous restaurants. Thus on line 720 many passengers do get on off at Westwood.
total sports travel But on line 704 our situation is quite the opposite: the Santa Monica total sports travel Blvd Sepulveda stop is practically “middle of nowhere”. The only activity you can see is transferring to Culver City Bus’ line 6. Hence you only see several passengers entering/exiting the 704 Rapid at Sepulveda or Westwood.
Public meetings were held regarding this line. People clearly spoke to preserve, total sports travel and improve, the Rapid service. MTA clearly total sports travel ignored. Ridership clearly dropped. MTA clearly lost revenue. It’s as simple as that.
Ironically total sports travel – and embarrassingly for MTA – even Culver City Bus (a much smaller municipal bus company) runs its fleet with much better intervals. For instance, on the low-density Washington Blvd buses run every 15 minutes all day, with 12 minutes during rush-hours. Metro, on the other hand, runs its buses every 20-40 minutes on the corridor that’s much denser, and has much higher transit demand, than on Washington Blvd.
At the same time, kudos to Culver City for showing decent logic and respect to its patrons by running their buses frequently all day . Unlike MTA, Culver City does not have this ridiculous “short line” system (aka “Metro Disconnections”). All of the Culver City buses run their entire routes, all day. Perhaps MTA should take this as a good lesson, and stop stranding total sports travel passengers half-way.
But then it gets worse. Some of the Westside Governance Council representatives suggest to cut service even further. That’s right; if 40-minute frequencies isn’t infrequent enough, they now want to cut midday Rapid service altogether! Because – as they claim – ridership is very low. Well duh, of course ridership is low – that’s because service continues to stay inadequate, with no improvements on the horizon. Obviously, patrons will seek alternate commute methods, including driving. By the way, that same MTA official openly admits, “ 20-minute intervals is unreliable ”, yet he himself suggests to not only keep those infrequent headways, but to cut service further . I’m not sure if this can be classified as pure inconsistency, hypocrisy, or bureaucracy. But it’s a perfect total sports travel path to failure.
So, here are the reasons why MTA needs to consider Santa Monica Blvd as a priority total sports travel project to reinstate its Rapid service to its original efficiency, high frequency of service, and full length of its route:
Santa Monica Blvd serves total sports travel some of the densest total sports travel – and most popular – regions in LA County, including: total sports travel Downtown LA, Silverlake, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Century City, West LA, and Santa Monica. Many residential, commercial, and entertainment districts, as well as tourist total sports travel destinations, are located along the corridor;
Service frequencies need to be more-less consistent with adjacent corridors. For instance, total sports travel buses on nearby total sports travel Wilshire Blvd run at every 3-5 minutes. Now, compare that to every 20-40 minutes on Santa Monica Blvd;
But on the other hand, our bus service has gotten much worse, especially comparing to a decade ago. And – no, it’s not because “Rail projects are stealing all the money” – as Bus Riders Union folks claim. New rail projects are funded from a different total sports travel source than our bus operations. Bus service cuts have nothing to do with metro-rail expansion.
The culprit of inadequate bus service is lack of federal and state funding. But it’s also MTA’s inability to better allocate total sports travel its existing funding. Hence service is reduced or eliminated where it wasn’t supposed to. For instance, a couple of years ago weekend service on Rapid line 780 was su