Starting this evening and continuing during the next two weeks Metro is holding community meetings seeking input on its Draft 2014 Short Range Transportation Plan and the companion technical document.

Metro describes the plan thusly:

… a ten-year action plan that guides our programs and projects through 2024. It advances us towards the long-term goals identified in the 2009 Long Range Transportation Plan, a 30-year vision for addressing growth and traffic in Los Angeles County.

Among the revelations of the technical document on page 29 is the following:

Articulated and extended length buses are assumed phased out over the Plan time frame. Metro is
standardizing on 40-foot buses as the maximum vehicle size. While this will increase operating costs,

it is expected to be offset by a reduction in acquisition and maintenance costs.

I understand Metro CEO Art Leahy has in the past stated his lack of enthusiasm for the articulated vehicles but one wonders how their elimination would impact operation of the dedicated busway services (i.e. the Orange Line and Silver Line).

A related document that was recently presented to the Service Councils and Metro’s Citizens’ Advisory Council is the draft of the Five-year Transit Service and Capital Improvement Plan for Fiscal Years 2014-2018. Advocates for bike lanes in the city of Los Angeles will be especially interested in section 3.4 (pp.28-29) that outlines Metro’s concerns about “implementing dedicated bicycle lanes or dedicated bicycle/transit lanes on streets where a high volume of transit bus service operates”.

So, are these concerns warranted?

I’m sure proponents of such lanes will want to attend these meetings and give Metro their input.