amtrak

It’s not everyday that a City launches a website dedicated solely to the transit options available, whether they be bus or rail.

It’s certainly not a normal day when an Orange County City launches a website dedicated solely to the transit options available, whether they be bus or rail, or in this case, rapid buses, high-speed rail, and monorails.

The City of Anaheim has recently launched a new website called AConnext, highlighting the future of transit in the Resort Area, as well as providing information for options currently in place, such as OCTA, Metrolink, Amtrak, and Anaheim Resort Transit (ART). The website serves as a one stop shop for residents and transit geeks alike to find all the information they need related to the new and upcoming projects that are sure to excite any diehard transit fans, along with the average businessman looking for ways to get around the Resort Area without driving. read more→

OCTA staff listened to a proposal at a recent Transit Advocates of UC Irvine meeting in which they asked for better OCTA transit service. 40 students attended this session along with OCTA planner Gordon Robinson and OCTA CEO Will Kempton.

OCTA has already made some improvements to UC Irvine's transit service. A little over a year ago, OCTA planners re-allocated trips to include more southbound 79 buses to relieve standing-room only conditions during peak commute hours. OCTA also made permanent a detour that serves UC Irvine's core students and Gottschalk Medical Plaza better (see below). Plus, they've recently added UC Irvine as a station for their future rapid bus system in their proposed long-range transportation plan.

Here are OCTA's permanent re-routings. They now serve the core of campus better, serving the School of Medicine, Gottschalk Medical Plaza, Beckman Laser Center, the Trevor School of Arts, the athletics center, and the new humanities building directly. 

But TAUCI believes more should be done. Currently, 27,600 students (not including staff) attend UC Irvine. OCTA's line 79 is the only bus line that runs through UC Irvine on weekends — every 80 minutes — and students have no regular daily bus routes that connect to the airport, Amtrak, or Metrolink stations. According to TAUCI president David Weinreich, they also discussed:

• Needing larger buses on route 175 to people due to frequent pass-bys and late buses
• Using advertising on bus stops to pay for desperately-needed schedule info
• Needing to have routes 70 & 90 meet at Culver — instead of Tustin Metrolink Station — to require one less wait & transfer for students coming to/from the route 79 (the most commonly used route by students).
• How OCTA's plans to boost Metrolink service is useless for UC Irvine students because of UC Irvine's distance from a station. TAUCI stressed that bus rapid transit lines would be much more preferable to frequent Metrolink service.

Their presentation included some useful facts like these:

What I think should even be done: OCTA should fold that (and may I editorialize) useless Newport Transportation Center into UC Irvine's hub. These two hubs compete for buses, and there will be a much higher demand for OCTA buses this coming year because UC Irvine will house another 1,500 or so students in new housing units, and Newport Transportation Center has no transit-dependent population nearby.

Route 1 — perhaps with a combination of the anemic route 76 — can serve to pick up the meager boardings in Newport Beach.

Having route 57 run to UC Irvine will give students access to Angel Stadium, an Amtrak/Metrolink station on weekends (okay, a 10-minute walk to Anaheim Station), UC Irvine Medical Center, South Coast Plaza, and Costa Mesa's clubs. WOOT.

Having route 1 run to UC Irvine will give students and Irvine residents a one-seat joyride to all of the beaches Orange County has to offer: Long Beach, Seal Beach, Sunset Beach, Huntington Beach Pier, San Clemente Pier, Laguna Beach, and Dana Point Harbor. Folks coming from Central Orange County have to transfer to the 1 anyways, so why not expand this to a transit-dependent population: UC Irvine students?

What do you think? Crazy idea? It's not going to cost *that* much money to re-route some buses, but will there be a trade-off for non-students? read more→

Tonight's the night! Doors open 5:30pm; we'll start the meeting at 6pm. Light refreshments will be served. Attached is the agenda, and here are some more details:

Santa Ana Depot (train station), 5th floor.
To arrive by transit: OCTA 59, 62, 83, 206, 462, 463, 464, Metrolink, Amtrak

Please attend; We'd love to meet you! You'll hear the latest on the bus funding situation, the bus cuts situation, and what can be done to help save our bus service. You can let us know your concerns and questions. Refreshments will be provided at no charge. Please let us know ASAP if you can volunteer as a greeter or translator.

actually, not a whole lot to note except for Metrolink track closure dates (listed below) and the upcoming ARTIC meeting, which I'll post about in just a few minutes... read more→

OCTA's weekly update was posted a few days ago. Just a few highlights I've found interesting with my opinion in italics:

• California Awarded $2.34 Billion In High-Speed Rail Funding.
• San Clemente Considers Wayside Horn System at Rail Crossings: could this be another "transit" project to benefit homeowners in the area?
• Orangethorpe Rail Corridor near Placentia and Anaheim to grade-separate 5 different crossings: could this be another "transit" project to benefit motorists in the area?
• OCTA's still throwing a few million dollars away in studies to evaluate building a several-billion-dollar freeway/tollway tunnel beneath the mountains separating Corona and Irvine. I'll post more about this later.
• OCTA will likely cut deeper into bus service in September. More about this later. 

The Weekly Update follows: read more→

Obama is set to announce tomorrow a whopping $2.35 billion in federal funds dedicated to improving intercity transit infrastructure in California. Here's what California's getting, according to Robert Cruickshank's comprehensive California High Speed Rail Blog: read more→

I noticed there's some OCTA talk about making Metrolink-Amtrak-Coaster train services easier to use for first-time riders. They recently did focus group studies on how they could improve service along the LOSSAN corridor. In a memo on August 14, 2008 with the subject "Los Angeles-San Diego Rail Corridor Service Integration Focus Group Findings," OCTA notes that: read more→