The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (L.A. Metro) will implement a four-phase plan for restoring bus and rail service as some aspects of the local economy start to open in the weeks ahead from COVID-19-related stay-at-home orders.
Under the recovery plan, L.A. Metro will be ramping up bus and rail service between now and early 2021. The authority says the idea is to match service levels with actual and expected ridership and the need to maintain physical distancing on buses and trains as well as more cleaning.
L.A. Metro’s plan includes the following:
- Phase 1 is projected to take place in June with some modest gains in service on the busiest corridors to accommodate returning non-essential trips.
- Phase 2 is projected to take place as early as July and August with additional service, with a focus towards providing transit service for students returning to school and additional people returning to work.
- Phase 3 may be implemented between September and November and includes modest gains in service in areas where and when the authority sees demand growing.
- Phase 4 is projected to take place between December and January and is expected to begin implementing changes and enhancements proposed under ongoing bus restructuring effort—called NextGen.
The NextGen effort has been underway for the past two years and was developed with considerable public input and scrutiny. The emphasis of the NextGen Plan is to provide more frequent service on L.A. Metro’s busier routes that would result in faster door-to-door trips for most riders.
The authority says its recovery plan aims to accomplish the primary goal of providing appropriate levels of clean and reliable transit service for those who depend on L.A. Metro that reflects the new post-pandemic normal. That means devoting more financial resources toward running enough service to maintain physical distancing and enhancing the cleanliness vehicles, stations and terminals.
After Los Angeles County issued its safer-at-home orders in March, L.A. Metro ridership fell by about 70 percent with many workers and students remaining at home — in raw numbers from about 1.2 million average weekday boardings to 360,000.
In response, L.A. Metro adjusted service in mid-April to reflect changes in ridership and the availability of operators and vehicles. The bus and rail service currently running is an enhanced Sunday service plan that overall is about a 30-percent cut in bus and 20 percent in rail from pre-pandemic service.
Going forward, the authority says it believes the four-phase plan will provide safe and reliable service for current riders while also making transit a good option for those who will be returning to L.A. Metro in the future.
