BETTER BUS SYSTEM WOULD KEEP CITY MOVING.

Byline: Charles J. Thomas 

THE government has the duty and responsibility to formulate a reliable system of public transportation as much as it has to create a police and fire department. This system must be tailored to grow with the population and follow commercial interests into suburbia with at least bus lines.

Most major and secondary cities outside of Los Angeles know this and are acting accordingly. Such a system should be in place for all kinds of emergencies and, equally importantly, the people must know that they are there. The system must be there for when cars break down, when residents are temporarily disabled and when one wishes to leave the car at home. It must also be there for those of us who are unable or unwilling to own a car.

No system of public transportation will ever replace the private automobile in Los Angeles, but a nondriving lifestyle should be encouraged whenever possible. The conditions that enabled the region to be so car-centered no longer exist. There are simply too many people today for us to rely on the automobile only. And millions more are expected to come in the early 2000s. If every resident, plus visitors to the area were to use a car for every form of transportation, no one would be able to move and air pollution would be even more intolerable. No one would be able to breathe.

Many homeless people today who cannot afford to eat have cars. There is great sympathy for the poor, and even some middle-income people who simply cannot afford outrageous insurance rates. Nevertheless, they drive in spite of this.

The accident rate is very high in Los Angeles, even among these uninsured, who then have the cars for which they have forfeited food taken away from them. The greater society should not be expected to bear the brunt of this problem.

A realistic, efficient public transportation system is the answer. The business community could help a great deal by subsidizing, in part or in full, the cost of employee bus or train passes or discount tokens. This would encourage the use of the system while saving precious parking spaces for clients and customers.

The transportation agency should first of all be depoliticized. It should be operated by a smaller board of directors, none of whom are politicians, and all of whom have extensive experience in transportation. At least one of them should have a background of using the system for all of his or her transportation needs.

The agency should expand the bus system. There should be more logical thought put into where the bus lines go, and a line on every major street. While not all lines should be expected to run 24 hours a day, there should be key lines that would do so. For instance, there should be lines that go from the city of Burbank along Magnolia, Sepulveda, Ventura, and Balboa boulevards, Rinaldi and Fox streets, and Laurel (at the north end of Woodman Avenue) and Woodman avenues that would pass and serve numerous major hospitals. Their stops could be coordinated to meet those buses. Other 24-hour lines could be likewise timed to meet them at strategic locations.

Transit centers should be taken away from railroad stations and placed at busy corners, for example, the corner of Roscoe Boulevard and Woodman, with coffee shops, convenience stores, and other urban amenities such as restrooms.

The expansion of the bus system would foster the creation of hundreds of jobs. The systems could move from an overtime base payroll, to one where overtime would be rare and many more people could be employed. Another thought would be for all people who are charged with hiring employees to give preference to applicants who live within 10 miles of the work location.

It is time our public officials put serious thought and effort into a working transportation system.