This week in review: CSU Fullerton students fight for routes; Metrolink board may raise fares 6%; FlyAway launches; L.A. Times looks at widening

I'm just now catching up with this week's stories, so bear with me. :-) Among these:

OCTA is accommodating CSU Fullerton protests to its bus cuts: CSU Fullerton's Daily Titan covers how OCTA's cuts will hurt students with OCTA's proposed elimination of routes 21, 24, and 33. About two dozen people appeared at OCTA's not-very-well-publicized Transit Committee meeting last week, protesting the service changes. As a result, OCTA staff will propose Monday that route 24 be retained on hourly headways weekdays only, and route 129 will start at La Habra Square (portions of the current route 29) and Miller/Miraloma (portions of the current route 59); OCTA has also included "mitigation suggestions" for eliminated routes. Some of these maps suggest that riders may walk up to 2 miles to catch another bus.

Metrolink's Board of Directors backtracked on a plan to jack up ticket prices by 6% after facing thousands of protests from angry riders, according to the Los Angeles Times. The San Bernardino County Sun newspaper interviewed train riders considering switching back to driving cars, and noted that the current weekday roundtrip Metrolink fare from San Bernardino to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles would change from $20.75 to $22.00. StreetsBlog LA credits rider "activism."

The FlyAway bus — which offers direct $25 service to between Irvine Station and LAX — just launched. Some comments on the post believe that $25 is too steep a price to pay; others note that private operator SuperShuttle from Orange County Airport to LAX can cost up to $45.

The L.A. Times notes Los Angeles County's emphasis on public transit and Orange County's over-reliance on freeways causes bottlenecks along freeways such as the 405 and the 5 between county lines. OCTA is undertaking a massive freeway expansion effort — unfortunately cannibalizing their public transit system — which L.A. StreetsBlog discusses in their post on OCTA's 91 freeway widening. A notable excerpt from the L.A. Times:

"L.A. is more transit-oriented; Orange County is more freeway-oriented," said Peter Buffa, chairman of the Orange County Transportation Authority. But as congestion mounts, that attitude will probably change, he believes.

"Ultimately, because of the pressure — with the growing population, environmental impacts — ultimately people will say, 'We get it, we can't get around one person to a car, that's not going to work.' In Orange County, quite frankly, we're not there yet," he said.

Buffa said many of the major differences in the transportation approaches are because of the counties' differing populations. Rail customers in Orange County usually have cars and take the train to avoid congestion or to save money on gas. In Los Angeles County, however, there are more people without cars who must rely on the bus or rails.

L.A. County has "more people, but also denser areas where trying to sell a rail line that goes down the middle of the street is a little easier than in some kind of wide open, very suburban, south Orange County city. . . . It's a political fight," Buffa said.

The disputes surrounding the plan to widen the 405 could be the first signs of the sort of political change that Buffa forecasts.

One hotbed of opposition to the widening is Westminster, a suburb of 90,000 that straddles both the 405 and 22 freeways. There, critics have been fighting over the 405 widening for years, saying OCTA could better spend the money on other transportation needs like street improvement, more buses and perhaps even a rail system.

"They're adding two lanes and putting everyone through this, and then they'll turn around and 10 years from now, we've got to expand four more lanes," said Paul Martorella, 51, a Westminster resident. "It's impractical to keep pouring cement."

In the last two decades, various Orange County entities have opened toll lanes on the 91 Freeway, built three toll roads and added miles of carpool lanes. The 405 is just the latest major project.