A newly released proposal for overhauling Metro bus service in Los Angeles includes innovative and controversial measures. Included is a new metric for measuring the success of bus lines.
"The main Los Angeles County transit agency, Metro, has released a set of 'Blue Ribbon Committee' recommendations [pdf] that show the agency trying to find its way toward higher ridership with the limits of its operating budget," according to a post by Jarrett Walker.
Walker summarizes the proposal of the committee (which is just a recommendation at this point—meant for public discussion but not yet adopted policy) as accomplishing one important change while also requiring two controversial measures as tradeoffs for funding the whole system. The important change is to expand the frequent bus network. The controversial tradeoffs are to reduce low-ridership coverage services and to increase the acceptable standard for peak crowding.
Eric Jaffe and Shane Phillips followed up on the news of the study with additional coverage, Jaffe provides additional explanation of the concepts at work in the proposal. Phillips provides additional access to the Route Performance Index Metro used in evaluating the existing bus system.
FULL STORY: Los Angeles: building the frequent network, and making hard choices
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