El Monte Busway - History

History

When the busway opened in 1973 it was exclusively for the use of buses. It was made available to private cars with three or more occupants for three months during the 1974 Southern California Rapid Transit District strike which lasted 68 days. Carpools with three or more occupants were then permitted to use the busway during peak hours starting in 1976 and then also at weekends from 1977 and 24 hours a day from 1981. A one mile extension into central Los Angeles opened in 1989.

Construction of the Harbor Transitway shared-use bus corridor in the median of Interstate 110 was approved in 1987 and was completed in 1995. In 1993 plans for a high frequency 'dual-hub' service were proposed which would operate along both busways between El Monte Bus Station in the east via downtown to the Artesia Transit Center in the south with buses very 2–3 minutes and a total journey time of about 60 minutes. A lack of funding meant that a service of this type was not introduced until 2009.

State bill 63 lowered the carpool occupancy requirement from three occupants to two on 1 January 2000. This was intended to be a 24-month experiment but it was cancelled after only 6 months in which period there had been a large increase in the number of vehicles using the lane, greatly increased journey-times and reduced average vehicle occupancy. Over this time speeds on the busway dropped from 65 mph (105 km/h) to 20 mph (32 km/h) and journey times increased by 20–30 minutes making it slower than the regular lanes where speeds dropped from 25 mph (40 km/h) to 23 mph (37 km/h). Accident rates on the busway increased significantly from zero in the six months before the experiment to five during the experiment. Foothill Transit needed to hire more drivers and stage more buses to provide busway service and the change generated over 1,000 complaints to government agencies.

The above bill had been proposed by senator Hilda Solis and authorized by Governor Gray Davis on July 1999 and was supported many cities hoping that carpool rates would increase but had been opposed by Caltrans, Foothill Transit and the Southern California Transit Advocates (a transit users' organization). As a result of the increased congestion an emergency measure (Bill 769) was passed in July 2000 to terminate the experiment during peak hours raising the occupancy required to three occupants or more between the hours of 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, in both directions. On weekends and at other times, the two occupant rule remains. This bill was supported by Hilda Solis who had proposed the original bill. Motorcycles, clean fueled vehicles, hybrid vehicles (with the appropriate sticker), and buses (with or without passengers) are allowed on the busway at all times. The busway was however still congested during peak hours and heavily congested just before and after peak hours.

The Metro Silver Line between the El Monte Bus Station and the Artesia Transit Center via downtown Los Angeles using the El Monte Busway and the Harbor Transitway started operation in December 2009.

The El Monte Station was rebuilt to double is capacity to 40,000 passengers as part of the Metro ExpressLanes project. Work began in September 2010 and was completed in September 2012.