Commissioner Dana Reed's
Daily Log

Day 1 - Thursday, July 1, 1999

While today was officially the first day of my grand adventure, I actually have been practicing since Sunday.

You see, I live in Orange County but my office is in downtown Los Angeles. I keep a small apartment on Bunker Hill which I use during the week.

Last Sunday night, I left my car at home and took a very crowded Amtrak train to LA.  I have been without an automobile all week.

Today was completely uneventful.  I took the City of Los Angeles' Dash bus to work from a stop near my apartment and then back up the hill this evening.  That was it.  Not very exciting.

Actually, the Dash system is great.  Route "B," which I use almost every weekday, runs twelve times an hour. In theory, at least, that means a bus comes by every five minutes.

The Dash normally costs a quarter but it's free if you have a Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) monthly pass.  A MTA pass costs only $42 per month and is the deal of the century.  I'll talk more about that later.

While today was uneventful, earlier this week I took a number of fairly long trips.

On Mondays and Wednesdays, I take an evening class at UCLA and getting from downtown LA to UCLA is a snap.

You just jump on the Red Line Subway until it ends at Wilshire & Western. Then, up the escalator to MTA Bus Number 21.  43 minutes later you're at the UCLA Transit Center which is conveniently located near the classrooms.

As I say, getting from downtown LA to UCLA is no problem. With MTA's $42 monthly pass, it is definitely cheaper, and probably faster, than driving.

Getting home, however, is another story.  While classes meet until 9:30 PM, the main bus serving the University (Route 21) makes its last run at 7:45 PM.

Memo to Supervisor Yvonne Burke, MTA's new Chair: Your busses departs the UCLA Transit Center for downtown Los Angeles 37 times each weekday. Can't you take just one of those 37 busses and run it when classes are over at 9:30 PM?

I don't mean to imply that I am stranded in Westwood, unable to get home. The always efficient Santa Monica Bus Line, for example, runs at night so I can take one of their busses to Wilshire Boulevard and then transfer to a MTA into town.

Also, there is the Number 2 line which runs all night long through the Sunset Strip and Hollywood into downtown.  What a trip that is!

Neither alternative is as convenient as the Route 21 line, however, and after a long day of work and study, it would be nice not to have to schlep from bus to bus just to get into town.

More tomorrow...

Well, it's been another uneventful day.

The Dash to work, the Dash back up the hill. That's it.

I would normally be heading home to Orange County this afternoon but my wife is coming up to LA instead.  Our granddaughter is visiting us from Bakersfield tomorrow and we are taking her to see Disney's new movie "Tarzan" at the El Captain Theater in Hollywood.

Actually, my wife is taking her to see Tarzan in Hollywood. I'm taking her to see the new Red Line extension to Hollywood which opened last month.

Don't you think that every three year old should get to ride the subway at least once?

Yesterday I wrote about my two visits to UCLA this week. In addition to those trips, I made a trek to Century City for dinner on Tuesday.

Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) maintains an internet program called TranStar.  You can find it at http://www.scag.ca.gov/transit/.  All you do is type in your starting point, your ending point and when you want to travel.  The computer gives you the fastest route.

On Tuesday, TranStar told me how to get to Century City and back. It told me to get on a City of Los Angeles Express Bus to West LA and transfer to a MTA bus from there to Century City.

The trip cost me 50 cents with my $42 monthly MTA pass and took less than an hour. City express busses use the freeway and cost a little more, which I why I had to pay the extra 50 cents. The basic fare, however, is covered by my pass.

The return trip was free because I rode MTA the entire way. I took a somewhat circuitous route because I was tired and didn't want to walk very far to get to my apartment. I started on the MTA #4 to Beverly Hills and transferred to the MTA #14 from Beverly Hills to Bunker Hill. Portal to portal was about an hour and 15 minutes.

If you have to transfer busses, Beverly Hills is kind of a nice place to do it.

By the way, there were about 1500 people at dinner Tuesday night and I suspect that except for the hotel staff, I was the only one there who came by bus.

More tomorrow...

Day 3 - Saturday, July 3, 1999

Today was our day to experience MTA's new Metro Red Line to Hollywood, and what an experience it was.  We found out, first hand, that its not always easy to find your way around tinsel town.

For some totally inexplicable reason, the MTA has TWO Metro Red Lines and for the novice rider it is almost impossible to figure out which is which.

The old Metro Red Line traverses underground from Union Station, through downtown LA, to the corner of Wilshire & Western.   The new Metro Red Line traverses underground from Union Station, through downtown LA, to Hollywood. The new Red Line is the one which will be extended to the San Fernando Valley next year with stops at Universal City and North Hollywood.

Half the trains running are the old Metro Red Line and half the trains running are the new Metro Red Line.  So, if you want to go from downtown Los Angeles to, say, Vermont & Sunset, you have a fifty-fifty chance of getting on the wrong train.

That's what we did this morning. We were on our way to Hollywood and ended up going out Wilshire!  And unlike the subways in New York, MTA's subways have no information attendants or ticket sellers to help you out.

Now there will be two types of people who will read this and say "so-what?": Those who don't ride public transit and could care less if anyone got on the wrong train or bus and those who know the MTA system backwards and forwards and are real good at deciphering unintelligible signage.

But, assuming your not in either of the above two categories, help me answer one question.  Why?  Why would the MTA Board of Directors call both of their subways, the Metro Red Line?

If Caltrans took all their freeways and called them the San Bernardino Freeway, wouldn't we say they were crazy?  If a city had four television stations and they were all called Channel 5, wouldn't we think something was wrong?  If every bus was called the Number 11 bus, regardless of where it started or where it ended, wouldn't we suggest they try something different?

Well, I'm suggesting the MTA do something different.  I'm suggesting that they take one of their so called "Red Lines" and CHANGE THE COLOR!

That's what they do in Washington, DC.  In DC, they have the Red Line subway that goes to X, the Yellow Line subway that goes to Y, and the Blue Line subway that goes to Z.  They all merge in downtown Washington and if you are just going a short distance, you can jump on any of them to get where you're going.  Believe me, they aren't all called by the same color.

Tourism is one of Los Angeles's biggest industries.  It may well be that given time, LA residents will be able to figure out which Metro Red Line goes to Hollywood and which one goes out Wilshire.  But what about our visitors?  Do we really want people visiting Southern California to think we're all monochromatic?

More tomorrow...

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Day 4 - Sunday, July 4, 1999

Today, Independence Day, was our day to go to Disneyland with our granddaughter from Bakersfield and her parents. They drove, but I took the bus.

TranStar, a fantastic web based routing system maintained by Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) at http://www.scag.ca.gov/transit/ told me to take the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA) bus #57 from Newport Beach's Fashion Island to Costa Mesa where I should transfer to the OCTA bus #43 up Harbor Boulevard to Disneyland. According to TranStar, the total one-way cost, including the transfer, would be $1.00.

As my OCTA #57 approached the transfer point in Costa Mesa, I noticed that the OCTA #43 was already there. Just as we pulled up, the #43 pulled away requiring us to wait for the next bus. Frustrating? You bet. I wonder why busses from the same operating company can't talk with each other. Why didn't the driver of my bus have a way to let the driver of the other bus know that he had passengers needing to transfer? It shouldn't be that hard to do.

As I said before, TranStar indicated that the total fare would be $1.00 and it was correct. A notice on the busses, however, indicated that, starting next Sunday, the same one-way trip would cost $2.00.

Now to me, there isn't much difference between $1.00 and $2.00 and I suspect that few if any visitors to this web site would seriously feel a $1 increase. But a lot of people will.

On the Fourth of July, Route 43 was very heavily patronized by local residents and their entire families. One couple got on the bus with four children and I saw the man feed six (6) one dollar bills into the farebox and request 6 transfers. Next week, that same man with the same family taking the same trip will have to feed 12 dollars into the farebox. I don't care what anyone says, $12 is serious money.

I wonder if the OCTA Board of Directors has a transcript of their deliberations at the various meetings where they debated whether or not to increase their one-way fares by 100%. I am really curious how they could possibly justify that. I wonder if they talked to the man I saw feeding $6 into the farebox and asked him if he could really afford $12? Was the vote unanimous? Did ANYONE say that there is something wrong here?

By the way, I only took the bus one way because in Orange County, the busses don't run at night.

There were tens of thousands of people at Disneyland and, being the Fourth of July, most stayed for the fireworks which began at 9:30. Then, when the fireworks were over, a very large percentage of those people, including us, left.

Anyone wanting, or needing, to take public transportation was out of luck. The last #43 bus left Disneyland a little after 9:00.

According to the local paper, numerous cities throughout Orange County held Fourth of July fireworks displays yet in reading the OCTA Bus Book, it appears that if you didn't drive an automobile, you couldn't participate in any of them. OCTA busses, it appears, were all shut down and in the barn within an hour of sundown.

How do kids (and adults, for that matter) without cars go to a movie in Orange County? How, in an allegedly sophisticated urban area like Orange County, can the OCTA Board of Directors just stop running the busses at sundown?

More tomorrow...

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Day 5 - Monday, July 5, 1999

Well, it's 8:00 P.M. as I write this and I'm sitting with my laptop computer at the Santa Ana Amtrak station because I missed my 7:53 P.M. train to Los Angeles. That in itself wouldn't be so bad, except I left my house more than two hours ago in order to be sure that I would get here on time. The next train doesn't leave until 9:49 P.M. To say that I'm angry is a gross understatement.

Caltrans spends over $60 million of taxpayers money each year subsidizing the operation of inter-city rail such as the 7:53 P.M. Amtrak train from Santa Ana to Los Angeles. In addition, they have spent another couple hundred million dollars on capital improvements such as better tracks, signals and stations. It seems more than a little silly to spend so much state money subsidizing inter-city rail when some local transit operators don't seem to care whether or not you can even get to the train station on time.

I guess this is my weekend to dump on the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA), but they deserve it! I am absolutely certain that they make no effort whatsoever to coordinate their bus schedules with Amtrak's train schedules.

I left OCTA's Newport Transportation Center at 6:05 P.M. on their #57 bus. According to the OCTA bus book, I could have transferred in Costa Mesa to the #43 up Harbor Boulevard to the Fullerton Transportation Center but that bus was scheduled to arrive four (4) minutes before the Amtrak train departs that station. Well I'm sorry but four minutes is not enough time to get off a bus, buy a ticket and run to a train!

So, I stayed on the very heavily utilized OCTA #57 (it was packed, all the way up Bristol) as it made its way to its final stop at the Santa Ana Transit Terminal at 7:24 P.M. Now, unfortunately, unlike the Fullerton Transportation Center which is located at the train station, the Santa Ana Transit Terminal is NOT where the Amtrak (or Metrolink) trains arrive or depart. Those trains arrive and depart from an entirely different facility, about three or four miles away, called the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center. And, as you might guess, when I arrived at the Santa Ana Transit Terminal, there were no busses going to the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center in time to make the 7:53 P.M. train.

Not only were there no busses, but there were no taxi cabs either. And not only were there no taxi cabs, but there was no dedicated phone line to call the cab company. So, I went to the pay phone, looked up the number of Yellow Cab in the phone book, and dialed away. The first number I called said that they were located in "South County" and didn't serve Santa Ana. They gave me an 800 number which I dialed and found inoperable. I went back to the phone book and started over.

The dispatcher who answered the third Yellow Cab number I called said "Santa Ana Transit Terminal. Is that the Amtrak Station?" I told him "No, it's where the OCTA busses terminate." The dispatcher then asked "do you have an address for that?"

Well, not only did I not have an address for the Santa Ana Transit Terminal, but neither did anyone else. I finally found a security man who wore a uniform similar to an Orange County Deputy Sheriff who gave me the address. I forwarded that information to the Yellow Cab dispatcher who said a taxi would be there right away. Right away was quick, but not quick enough. I arrived at the train station just as my train was leaving.

Now it's probably too much to ask that the Santa Ana Transit Terminal and the Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center merge into one location. And, its probably unrealistic for OCTA to run a bus between the two terminals for riders of each Metrolink and Amtrak train. But is it too much to ask for a dedicated phone line to the taxi cab company? Or if the transit poobahs balk at that, could they at least post the phone number of the local cab company and put the address of the facility on a sign near the pay phones?

I just live here in Orange County and I'm embarrassed and frustrated. I can't imagine what visitors must think if they try to get anywhere by public transit.

More tomorrow...

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Day 6 - Tuesday, July 6, 1999

Was I too hard on the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA)? After receiving very courteous responses from OCTA Executive Director Lisa Mills and Media Relations Director John Standiford, I re-read my journal for July 4th & July 5th and, in retrospect, I agree that I was a little harsh.

You see I served on the OCTA Board of Directors and its predecessor, the Orange County Transportation Commission's Board, for more than five years and I guess I instinctively hold them to a higher standard than I should. In terms of psychobabble I think it's called tough love, or something like that.

Clearly the OCTA is not the only transit operator which doesn't provide evening service and, best of all, they are poised to remedy that problem very shortly. In addition, they point out that while starting next Sunday a one way trip with a transfer will cost $2.00, for that very same $2.00 you can get an all day pass. For the vast majority of riders, this will be a good deal.

Ok. Ok. There are two sides to every story and their side is not unreasonable. But how about the fact that it took me FIVE HOURS to get from OCTA's Newport Transit Center to my apartment in Los Angeles last night because the bus schedules are not coordinated with the Amtrak schedules? Work on that, ok? Also, how about considering a "family fare" for weekends and holidays. Why not let people take their kids on the bus to go shopping or visit grandma without breaking the family budget?

To my friends at OCTA, I'm sorry. You are great people and you work very hard. I just got mad because your not perfect!

Anyway, after my five hour sojourn last night, I'm back in the City of Angels with her five minute headway Dash busses, two excellent subways and all night transit down Sunset, Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards. Life of the transit user is pretty good here. Maybe we should ask Randy Newman to write a song about it.

I haven't yet found out why the Bus Riders Union is complaining so vociferously. Maybe they can e-mail me some bus lines they feel I should try. The ones I've used so far work fairly well.

By the way, over 100,000 people (including my wife and I) will be at the Rose Bowl this weekend for the finals of the Women's World Cup Soccer tournament. There hasn't been so much excitement for a sporting event since the '84 Olympics. Hopefully the MTA will be on full stage alert so we all don't have to drive our cars.

More tomorrow...

Day 7 - Wednesday, July 7, 1999

I have a pit in my stomach for two reasons. First, I have class tonight at UCLA and I haven't finished my homework. My professor has a sixth sense. She always calls on me whenever I'm unprepared.

My second concern is that the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) appears to be on the brink of making another one of its famous world-class blunders. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I am.

Pick up any newspaper published in Los Angeles County this week and you will see a story on Page 1 about the Women's World Cup Soccer finals on Saturday at the Rose Bowl. The game is between the United States and China. It is a complete sell out and scalpers are demanding hundreds of dollars over the face amount for tickets. The President of the United States announced yesterday that he was changing his schedule so he could attend the event. Even if you normally don't give a hoot about sports, this is big!

My wife and I have tickets and I want to take the bus. Guess what. The MTA seems to be ignoring the whole thing. I logged on to TranStar at http://www.scag.ca.gov/transit/ and was told that from downtown Los Angeles, there are NO BUSSES TO THE ROSE BOWL this weekend. Incredulous, I called the MTA's hotline at 1-800-COMMUTE and was told the same thing.

Of course I can always take the regular Saturday bus service to Pasadena. No problem. But if I want to go to the Rose Bowl, I'll have to transfer busses in downtown Pasadena and walk down the hill from the corner of Lincoln & Mountain. And with 100,000 people descending on Pasadena, the regular Saturday bus service is certain to be completely inadequate. Can you imagine what the ride home will be like with everyone leaving at the same time and transit riders trying to get on a single bus?

Ok MTA, please don't screw this up. You have 100,000 residents and visitors to Southern California as well as the President of the Untied States going to Pasadena for a soccer match which will be broadcast around the world. Please don't tell me that you are not going to provide adequate transportation.

More tomorrow...

Email your comments and questions to: danareed@politicallaw.com

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