Busways Not a Panacea for Los Angeles

I would like to commend Trombley for effectively pointing out how much money a bus system could save over a rail system in low density, vastly dispersed urban areas like Los Angeles or Houston. Let me expand on this concept.

Los Angeles has one special feature: the multitude of origins and destinations. Office workers in Los Angeles are not going downtown in the morning, many of them are heading for large clusters of office buildings in the Los Angeles International Airport/El Segundo area or Century City, just to name a few. Airlines have dealt with the problem of multiple origins and multiple destinations very effectively through the hub and spoke concept. Someone going from Reno, Nev., to Charleston, S.C., will only have to take a local flight to his regional hub in Denver, take a wide-body flight from Denver to the southeast regional hub in Atlanta, and from there go on to his final destination. Theoretically, one can go from any small city in the United States to any other small city by only changing planes twice in two regional hubs.

Why not apply the same approach the airlines have used so successfully to urban transportation problems? An office worker living in Orange County would drive in the morning to his nearest transit hub next to a large shopping mall. From here non-stop coaches leave for the transit hubs in downtown, Century City and the airport/El Segundo area, to stay with our example. Let’s say our worker picks the coach to the airport transit hub. From there an employer-provided shuttle bus transfers him to his office building.

The advantages to the worker are obvious: he or she can use the two-hour daily commuting time productively, working on files from the office, reading the newspaper, studying for an extension course, eating or sleeping. Most families using this system may even save the cost of a second car.

The advantages to the taxpayer are even more obvious: no expensive rail lines need to be constructed to set up a regional transportation system based on the dual hub concept. Special car pool/bus lanes on freeways would greatly enhance this system, but they are not even essential for it to work.

Transit hubs could be constructed for the cost of taking an existing parking lot and putting another level on top of it. Shopping malls should be very interested in this concept because of the additional business it would generate. People are likely to shop where they have to interrupt their journey anyway. Gas stations found this out a while ago.

Line-haul transportation between the hubs could be provided by competing private bus lines or the RTD, if necessary. Employers would receive incentives similar to those encouraging car pooling to provide a shuttle bus between the nearest transit hub and their office building.

The system could be set up and operated at a fraction of the cost needed for Metro Rail and it would not only benefit those people traveling between Union Station and Alvarado Street.

REINHARD CLEVER

Redondo Beach