(Photo courtesy of Darryl DuFay.)

After much controversy and a town hall meet, the Big Blue Bus, that services Venice and now Marina del Rey, has changed Routes 1 and 18 again, and will reroute starting 21 August. Route 1 will not go on Ocean which was so controversial. But route 18, which was also changed, is still controversial.   For bus service schedules go to BBB.

All are happy to see the Bus Route 1 changed off of Ocean Ave, which was determined to be too narrow to be safe.

Route 1

Route 18 still goes down 4th, which is as narrow as Ocean and adds a steep hill. The other disagreements one group of advocates has with Route 18 are Rose, 7th, and California. These advocates will be meeting with Councilman Mike Bonin next week to discuss further changes to Route 18. Another group of advocates is concerned about Abbot Kinney and their concerns are listed below.

Route 18

Bus stops are projected to be at Abbot Kinney and Coeur d’Alene Ave, Abbot Kinney and Boccaccio/Marr Aves, Abbot Kinney and Venice Bl.

Schedule:
Weekdays: 5:30am to 11:00pm
Saturday: 5:50am to 10:00pm
Sunday: 6:20am to 10:00pm

Buses every half hour, increasing to every 20 minutes during rush times.

There were  three neighborhood meetings with BBB and CD11 and advocates are left with
concerns:

1) BBB sold this service to us as running from 6am to 9pm. Now they are extending that by 1 to 2 1/2 hours per day into the quietest times of each day. This is a significant change of the service parameters sold by BBB and will likely negatively impact the quality of life for residents.

2) Noise. The stops are 3-4 blocks apart. The buses could be braking and accelerating for the entire trip; their noisiest operations.

3) Parking. We will lose some parking on Abbot Kinney for the stops. But potentially more important, since there is little parking for cars around the Santa Monica Downtown Expo Line Station, people may use our neighborhood streets as their free parking lot taking up scarce parking
and then commute by bus to Santa Monica. Farfetched? LAX travelers have been doing it for years.

4) Schools. Coeur d’alene has two Elementary Schools. Is this intersection a good place for a bus stop considering the volume of vehicle and foot traffic to and from the schools?

5) Safety and Lane Width. Bikes, cars, trucks, RVs already compete for lane space. Vehicles of all sizes park on both sides; delivery trucks park in the center lane; leaving cars, trucks, bikes and now buses to compete for the driving lane. Will the proposed wide and long buses squeeze among these existing users safely?

Residents proposed Alternatives to BBB and CD11 regarding BBB’s impending use of Abbot Kinney:

1) New Route 18 is advertised as a feeder to the Expo Line. From all directions of this area of Venice, it is more efficient to go directly to the Culver City Expo Station at Venice Bl/Washington Bl and National Bl using existing bus lines on Venice Bl or Washington Bl rather than travel to downtown Santa Monica Expo Station to then backtrack towards Downtown Los Angeles. And there is parking at Culver City Station.
BBB, other Bus lines and the City could/should be promoting this idea.

2) Instead of running Route 18 on a mostly residential section of AK, use the existing bus infrastructure on the commercial streets of Washington Bl/Lincoln Bl/ Venice Bl to swing around Abbot Kinney and still provide an efficient service. In tests drives, we found the time difference between the two is 4-5 minutes.