Changes to a variety of Metro bus lines that run through San Pedro were unanimously approved at the Sept. 18 meeting of the South Bay Cities Service Council, which is assigned with adjusting those transportation lines in the South Bay twice a year. The changes will be implemented between December 2020 and January 2021.
Joe Forgiarini, Metro’s senior director of service performance and analysis, said the area of most concern among San Pedro residents is line 205, which goes north on the western side of San Pedro. It crosses over on an east and west alignment on 7th Street, finishing at the waterfront. Forgiarini said it does an unusual zig-zag on 1st Street, 7th Street and 13th Street.
“It’s a really complicated and somewhat inefficient alignment,” Forgiarini said. “The NextGen proposal was to centralize the line on an easier to understand, more direct path on 7th Street, including access to the hospital in the area.”
The 550 Line will no longer serve San Pedro. Instead, the council realigned the end of the 246 Line to serve North Gaffey Street.
“There’s significant retail in that area,” Forgiarini said. “Revising the 246 has the nice benefit of giving both Wilmington and San Pedro residents good connectivity into that significant retail area, rather than the 550 that only provided the San Pedro connection.”
The proposal includes rerouting the LA Dash in San Pedro to cover 1st Street and 13th Street, Forgiarini said.
Due to public feedback, the new plan will serve the far south of San Pedro, extending line 246 to Point Fermin, instead of a previous proposal that ended service at 22nd Street.
Other changes include the return of the 450 Line, which replaces the 950 Line. The 450 will run through Pacific Avenue, connecting to the Harbor Gateway Transit Center during off-peak periods and on evenings and weekends. In addition, it will run to 7th and Metro in downtown Los Angeles every 10 minutes on weekdays during the peak periods of 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Off-peak service will be every 15 minutes.
The 950 operates as part of the Silver Line service, and in addition to going to Downtown Los Angeles, it goes to El Monte and the I-10 Freeway. The 950 shares the same stops as the 910 Silver Line.
“There’s a major initiative at Metro to electrify the 910,” Forgiarini said. “One of the key operating challenges for us is to establish charging facilities at both the El Monte end of the line and somewhere in the South Bay cities.”
Metro can install charging facilities in Harbor Gateway on publicly owned land, Forgiarini said. Metro’s plan is to use the 910 as a standalone bus between El Monte and Harbor Gateway, leaving the problem of how to replace it in San Pedro. The original proposal suggested the 510 Line, which followed the 950’s route in San Pedro. Once on the freeway, it would directly go toward the Harbor Freeway Station and connect to the 910 there. However, San Pedro residents strongly opposed this.
Forgiarini said San Pedro residents brought up several issues with this plan, including losing direct access to downtown Los Angeles with a one-seat (no transfer) ride. Others said the Harbor Freeway Station was an unpleasant place to transfer and objected to losing access to the Harbor Gateway Transit Center, which is a regional hub for transportation in South Bay cities.
“I’m concerned about the substitute line, 450,” said J.K. Drummonds, a member of the public who was called into the Sept. 18 meeting. “I hope it will not bypass the Harbor Gateway Transit Center; that’s where you transfer to everything.”
Because of complaints, Metro staff changed the 910 so that it still had access to 7th and Metro station in downtown Los Angeles during peak periods.
“However, we still have been receiving quite a bit of commentary,” Forgiarini said. “We believe people are looking for the more all-day one-seat ride, in fact, let me call it the all-week one-seat ride to downtown LA.”
However, to allow people in San Pedro access to the 7th and Metro Station in downtown seven days a week, the council would need to put the 910 into service during evenings and night owl periods, Forgiarini said.
Szerlip said that one of the council’s biggest concerns with San Pedro is connecting the San Pedro peninsula with downtown Los Angeles.
“I’ve heard it in many of the comments, ‘we want a one-seat ride to downtown,’” Szerlip said. “What does ‘downtown’ mean? Downtown Los Angeles is a big location.”
Szerlip pointed out that the 950 line goes through downtown Los Angeles to El Monte; the 450 Line will truncate downtown Los Angeles since it only goes to 7th and Metro.
“Is 7th and Figueroa downtown?” Szerlip said. “Or is downtown going all the way to Union Station, where you’ve covered all of those downtown options that one might wish to have that single-seat ride to, that are currently being served by the 950?”
Some members of the public did not approve of the council’s changes. Brenda Lopez, a graphic designer for this paper who rides the bus from Inglewood to San Pedro, submitted a public comment saying that service from the 950 should be more frequent.
“The 950 is the only bus that connects the rest of LA to San Pedro,” Lopez said. “There are times I waited for the 950 for over an hour. But other than that, it is the only way to quickly get down here. The 246 makes so many stops it takes three times as long as the 950. The change would require me to take three buses instead of two, which means that’s three times I have to wait for buses that are not on similar schedules.”
Charles M. Deemer, a board member of the South Bay Cities Service Council, said that the proposed changes would make it more difficult to go to evening events in downtown Los Angeles because the 450 does not go to 7th and Metro after 7 p.m.
“How difficult would it be to have, let’s say, three late-evening buses … for events that will be finishing around 10 to 10:30 so they can have [a] direct bus ride all the way back from downtown, so to speak, to San Pedro?” Deemer said.
Deemer pointed out that if commuters miss the bus, they could have to wait 25 to 30 minutes in the cold.
Conan Cheung, senior executive officer of operations at Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said this would be inefficient, as there would only be a few people per night.
“If we were going to implement that, we would have to be able to do this cost-neutrally,” Cheung said. “We would have to take out a fairly substantial amount of revenue that was somewhere else.”
Cheung said this would essentially be a special event service, not regular ridership.
Deemer moved to have the 450 go to 7th and Metro more often, but the motion did not get a second.