Transit Hits and Misses

Are there ways to promote use of the Metro Red Line subway when its first (and only) San Fernando Valley stations open June 24?

Absolutely. Using the slogan “A New Way to Express Yourself,” the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is planning an aggressive marketing campaign to convince commuters that the subway will provide a quick, convenient and inexpensive way to get from the Valley to downtown.

The MTA intends to offer free fares the weekend the subway opens. And it will also promote its new rapid bus service along Ventura Boulevard, with frequent service and limited stops, to ferry passengers across the Valley to the soon-to-open Universal City and North Hollywood stations.

So far, so good.

In the long term, clustering high-density housing and development, as is proposed for the area around the North Hollywood station, would encourage ridership.

And a high-speed busway, like the one proposed on today’s Valley Perspective page by Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky along the Burbank-Chandler corridor, would be an effective way to funnel passengers from the West Valley to the subway stations and from there to downtown.

But there is also a wrong way to “promote” ridership. And the MTA--never one to learn from past mistakes--chose it last week in rerouting Valley-to-downtown express buses.

Instead of sending the popular buses on the congested Hollywood Freeway through the Cahuenga Pass, the MTA plans to reroute them to the Universal City Red Line station, where passengers would transfer to the subway.

This will eliminate duplication of services, argues the MTA--and, just oh by the way, boost subway ridership, which is far below projections on the already-open Hollywood-to-downtown segment of the Red Line.

But Valley commuters are unlikely to embrace this new way of “expressing” themselves if it’s forced on them rather than chosen. Commuters, after all, want speed and convenience, just like the MTA says--and not everyone sees transferring from one form of public transportation to another as the most speedy and convenient approach.

Sure, forcing commuters to ride subways will get a few buses off the already-clogged freeways, and if bus ridership drops once the subway opens, by all means eliminate those routes. But wasn’t the point to get lots more vehicles off the freeway? To get commuters out of cars, not buses? To offer more choices, not take choices away?

To boost subway ridership by forcing commuters off one form of public transportation to another is a shell game. The MTA, already accused of neglecting bus service in favor of rail, just doesn’t get it.