The Los Angeles Metro Bus is the transit

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

service in

Los Angeles County, California Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles and sometimes abbreviated as LA County, is the List of United States counties and county equivalents, most populous county in the United States, with 9,663,345 residents estimated in 202 ...

, operated by the

Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), branded as Metro, is the county agency that plans, operates, and coordinates funding for most of the Transportation in Los Angeles, public transportation system in Los Ang ...

(Metro). Metro Bus operates in the

Los Angeles Basin The Los Angeles Basin is a sedimentary Structural basin, basin located in Southern California, in a region known as the Peninsular Ranges. The basin is also connected to an wikt:anomalous, anomalous group of east–west trending chains of mountai ...

, the

San Fernando Valley The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...

, and the western

San Gabriel Valley The San Gabriel Valley (), sometimes referred to by its initials as SGV, is one of the principal valleys of Southern California, with the city of Los Angeles directly bordering it to the west and occupying the vast majority of the southeastern ...

, serving a population of approximately 10 million people. Metro Bus provides the main local bus service in the

city of Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With an estimated 3,878,704 residents within the city ...

, and regional services across its service area. Metro Bus services connect with multiple other operators in the region, providing connections at an extensive network of transit centers, many of which are located at Metro Rail stations and regional destinations. , there are 116 Local, Rapid, Limited, and Express routes in the system, excluding Metro Busway routes. The Metro Bus fleet is the third-largest in the United States, with 2,066 buses . The Metro Bus fleet consists of

CNG Compressed natural gas (CNG) is a fuel gas mainly composed of methane (CH4), compressed to less than 1% of the volume it occupies at standard atmospheric pressure. It is stored and distributed in hard containers at a pressure of , usually in c ...

and

battery-electric A battery electric vehicle (BEV), pure electric vehicle, only-electric vehicle, fully electric vehicle or all-electric vehicle is a type of electric vehicle (EV) that uses electrical energy exclusively from an on-board battery pack to power ...

buses, with additional hydrogen fuel-cell and battery-electric buses on order. The majority of Metro Bus lines are operated by Metro directly, with select services operated by private contractors. In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of .

History

Early 1990s: Founding of the LACMTA

The

, abbreviated as Metro, was founded in 1993 from the merger of the

Southern California Rapid Transit District The Southern California Rapid Transit District (almost always referred to as ''RTD'' or rarely as ''SCRTD'') was a public transportation agency established in 1964 to serve the Greater Los Angeles area. It was the successor to the original Los ...

and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. It was charged with financing and constructing a rapid transit rail system, operating the bus system, and coordinating other transportation programs in the region. The conflicts that had occurred between the RTD and the LACTC persisted as internal conflicts within Metro, with union leaders arguing that former LACTC staff received better benefits than former RTD staff, even after the merger. The ongoing conflict over funding rail construction and bus services continued at Metro. Only months after the agency's founding, Metro CEO Julian Burke presented a proposed budget for

fiscal year A fiscal year (also known as a financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. La ...

1994 to the agency's board of directors. The proposed budget would halt progress on the Union Station–Pasadena segment of the Blue Line to support continued bus operations and rail construction. Los Angeles mayor

Richard Riordan Richard Joseph Riordan (May 1, 1930 – April 19, 2023) was an American businessman, investor, military commander, philanthropist, and politician. A decorated Korean War veteran and a member of the Republican Party, Riordan served as the 39th ...

strongly criticized the plan, and at his insistence, the board directed Metro staff to continue planning for the Pasadena Blue Line, causing Metro to look for other sources of funding. Metro proposed a large bus fare increase in June 1994, to take effect on September 1st of that year. The fare for a single bus ride was proposed to increase 23% from $1.10 to $1.35 ($ to $ in ), and all monthly passes were planned to be eliminated. A 2004 analysis found that the average monthly bus pass user took approximately 100 trips per month, which would have caused a fare increase of over 50% for the average passholder.

Late 1990s: Consent decree and Metro Rapid

On August 31, 1994, a

class action A class action is a form of lawsuit. Class Action may also refer to: * ''Class Action'' (film), 1991, starring Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio * Class Action (band), a garage house band * "Class Action" (''Teenage Robot''), a 2002 e ...

lawsuit was filed against Metro by a coalition of local and national civil rights organizations, representing Los Angeles bus riders. The civil rights organizations, including the Bus Riders Union, the

Southern Christian Leadership Conference The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African Americans, African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. SCLC is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., ...

, and the Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates, supported by the

NAACP Legal Defense Fund The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF, the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF) is an American civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City. LDF is wholly independent and separate from the NAACP. Although LDF ca ...

. The plaintiffs argued that Metro's large subsidies for rail construction and operation discriminated against bus riders, whose demographics were significantly different than those of rail riders. The court delayed the fare increase, and after nearly two years of

discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

proceedings, the case was

settled A settler or a colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that a settler establishes is a settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among the first settli ...

before it went to trial. The

consent decree A consent decree is an agreement or settlement that resolves a dispute between two parties without admission of guilt (in a criminal case) or liability (in a civil case). Most often it is such a type of settlement in the United States. The ...

that resulted from the settlement required Metro to significantly expand bus service. One product of the consent decree was Metro Rapid, a brand of

limited-stop In public transit, particularly bus, tram, or train transportation, a limited-stop (or sometimes referred to as semi-fast) service is a trip pattern that stops less frequently than a local service. Many limited-stop or semi-fast services are a co ...

bus service with some characteristics of bus rapid transit. A delegation from the Los Angeles city government, including Mayor

, visited the Brazilian city of

Curitiba Curitiba () is the capital and largest city in the state of Paraná (state), Paraná in Southern Brazil. The city's population was 1,773,718 , making it the List of cities in Brazil by population, eighth most populous city in Brazil and the larg ...

in early 1999. The civic leaders were impressed by Curitiba's comprehensive bus rapid transit system, the Rede Integrada de Transporte, and sought to replicate it. By the summer of 1999, planning was underway for a pilot program of bus rapid transit service on two corridors: Wilshire Blvd/ Whittier Blvd and Ventura Blvd. In addition to Metro Rapid service, Metro expanded local and express bus service, purchased hundreds of new buses, and lowered bus pass prices. Metro Rapid service on the two pilot corridors began in June 2000, opening on the same day as the Red Line extension to

North Hollywood North Hollywood is a neighborhood and district in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California. The neighborhood contains the NoHo Arts District, El Portal Theater, several art galleries, and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Th ...

. Both lines were immediately popular, generating ridership growth of 25% in their first 90 days of operation. Travel time was improved by over 20% on both lines, aided by the signal priority at intersections in the City of Los Angeles. Customer satisfaction increased relative to the previous local and

bus services, and the Rapid service quickly captured over 60% of bus ridership on both corridors.

2000s: Alternative fuels and declining ridership

Metro introduced

compressed natural gas Compressed natural gas (CNG) is a fuel gas mainly composed of methane (CH4), compressed to less than 1% of the volume it occupies at standard atmospheric pressure. It is stored and distributed in hard containers at a pressure of , usually in ...

-powered buses and low-floor buses in the late 1990s. By 2003, Metro was the largest operator of CNG buses in the country, with over 1,900 CNG buses operating across its service area. A rule passed by the

South Coast Air Quality Management District The South Coast Air Quality Management District, also using the acronym South Coast (AQMD), formed in 1976, is the air pollution agency responsible for regulating stationary sources of air pollution in the South Coast Air Basin and the Coachel ...

in 2000 banned new diesel-powered buses in transit fleets in Southern California, seeking to improve air quality in the region. California transit ridership began declining in the early 2000s, with a large share of the decline coming from the Los Angeles region. A 2018 study attributed some of the decline to rising car ownership among passengers, and also highlighted the effect of bus service cuts across the region. From 2007 to 2013, bus service in miles traveled dropped 13% across the entire

Southern California Association of Governments The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) is the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) of six of the ten counties in Southern California, serving Imperial County, Los Angeles County, Orange County, Riverside County, San Berna ...

region, which extends beyond Los Angeles County. In addition to the 2018 study's hypothesis, a 2024 study argued that some of this decline was due to the high cost of housing in areas of Southern California that had better access to public transport. Metro introduced the Transit Access Pass (TAP) fare payment system in 2008, creating a single fare card for most buses and trains in Los Angeles County. TAP replaced a system of

magnetic stripe The term digital card can refer to a physical item, such as a memory card on a camera, or, increasingly since 2017, to the digital content hosted as a virtual card or cloud card, as a digital virtual representation of a physical card. They shar ...

stored-value cards already in use by some agencies, including

Big Blue Bus Big Blue Bus (stylized in lowercase) is a public transit agency that provides public bus services for the city of Santa Monica and the greater Westside region of Los Angeles County, California. The service, operated by the city of Santa Monica ...

and

Foothill Transit Foothill Transit is a public transit agency that is government funded by 22 member cities in the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys. It operates a fixed-route bus public transit service in the San Gabriel Valley region of eastern Los Angeles Cou ...

. In 2018, TAP fully replaced the previous system of paper interagency transfers, offering discounts on rides that connected between multiple bus and rail operators.

2020s: NextGen Bus Plan and COVID-19

At the outset of the

COVID-19 pandemic in California The COVID-19 pandemic in California began earlier than in some other parts of the United States. Ten of the first 20 confirmed COVID-19 infections in the United States were detected in California, and the first infection was confirmed on Janua ...

, Metro Bus services were cut to approximately 80% of 2019 levels. Face masks were required on Metro buses, and passengers were required to board through the back door of buses to support

social distancing In public health, social distancing, also called physical distancing, (NB. Regula Venske is president of the PEN Centre Germany.) is a set of non-pharmaceutical interventions or measures intended to prevent the spread of a contagious dise ...

between bus drivers and passengers. The pandemic's impact on public transit affected ridership in Los Angeles and worldwide. In 2021, as transit ridership nationwide began to increase, bus service in Los Angeles regained patronage faster than rail services in the region, and faster than its peers in California. Los Angeles-area transit ridership outpaced

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...

transit ridership by tens of millions of trips in 2021 for the first time in decades, driven largely by bus ridership. An analysis by the

Bay Area News Group Bay Area News Group (BANG) is the largest publisher of daily and weekly newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area, including its flagship ''The Mercury News''. A subsidiary of the Denver-based MediaNews Group, its corporate headquarters is in San ...

showed that the largest bus operators in the Los Angeles region were at 74% of 2019 bus ridership levels in June 2022, far higher than their peers in New York City and the Bay Area.

Routes

Metro buses are given line numbers that indicate the type of service offered. This method was devised originally by the Southern California Rapid Transit District, Metro's predecessor. * Line numbers lower than 100 are local routes to/from Downtown Los Angeles, numbered counterclockwise from least to greatest. * Line numbers in the 100s are local east/west routes in other areas * Line numbers in the 200s are local north/south routes in other areas * Line numbers in the 300s are limited-stop routes * Line numbers in the 400s are freeway express routes to/from Downtown Los Angeles * Line numbers in the 500s are freeway express routes in other areas * Line numbers in the 600s are shuttle/circulator routes * Line numbers in the 700s are limited-stop rapid routes. * Line numbers in the 800s are used to designate Metro Rail routes as well as supplementary shuttles for suspended rail service. * Line numbers in the 900s are Metro Busway routes.

1-99 (Local routes to/from Downtown Los Angeles)

Local bus service to/from

Downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) is the central business district of the city of Los Angeles. It is part of the Central Los Angeles region and covers a area. As of 2020, it contains over 500,000 jobs and has a population of roughly 85,000 residents ...

and other areas. The line numbering begins at line 2 ( Sunset Bl, a line leading west from USC) and proceeds counterclockwise around Downtown Los Angeles, ending at line 94 ( Magnolia Bl).

100s (Local east/west routes in other areas)

East/west service, not necessarily serving Downtown Los Angeles.

200s (Local north/south routes in other areas)

North/south service, not serving in Downtown Los Angeles.

300s (Limited-stop routes)

400s (Freeway express routes to/from Downtown Los Angeles)

500s (Freeway express routes in other areas)

600s (Shuttles/circulators)

Shuttles, special routes and local service within one or two adjacent neighborhoods.

700s (Rapid limited-stop routes)

800s (Metro Rail shuttle)

Line numbers 801 thru 805, and 807 are used for Metro's A, B, C, E, D and K rail lines in order of ascension. Shuttle services are numbered based on the rail's route number, plus fifty.

900s (Metro Busway)

Fleet

, Metro operates 2,066 buses in revenue service, the third-largest fleet in North America behind New York City's

Metropolitan Transportation Authority The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is a New York state public benefit corporations, public benefit corporation in New York (state), New York State responsible for public transportation in the New York metropolitan area, New York Ci ...

(5,840) and New Jersey's

NJ Transit New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit or NJTransit and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey and portions of the states of New York and Pennsylvania. I ...

(2,221).

Gallery

File:Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority NABI 45C.jpg, Metro Bus NABI CompoBus laying over on Platt Avenue in West Hills File:2018-2020 El Dorado ENC 1782.jpg, Metro Bus

ENC Axess The ENC Axess is a line of Low-floor bus, low-floor transit buses available in 35-foot and 40-foot nominal lengths manufactured by ENC (company), ENC (formerly ElDorado National–California) in Riverside, California starting from 2003. In additi ...

arriving at

North Hollywood Station North Hollywood station is a combined rapid transit (known locally as a subway) and bus rapid transit (BRT) station in the Los Angeles Metro Rail and Metro Busway systems. It is the northwestern terminus of the B Line subway and eastern term ...

File:LACMTABusstop.jpg, Stop in Downtown Los Angeles File:Metro Local Line 239 Bus Interior at Sylmar.JPG, Interior of a NABI 45C bus on Metro Local Line 239.

Notes

References

External links

Metro Bus schedules
{{Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Metro Local

Metro Local The Los Angeles Metro Bus is the transit bus service in Los Angeles County, California, operated by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro). Metro Bus operates in the Los Angeles Basin, the San Fernando Valley, and th ...