CITYWIDE — If you've noticed some changes to your daily bus commute, don't worry — it's not just you.
The Big Blue Bus made significant schedule revisions beginning last week, cutting out and adding service along several of its most popular routes and suspending some service for the summer altogether, according to a report released Friday.
Bus stops have also been rearranged, with some routes losing as many as five of their normal stops often with fewer added back at different locations to replace them.
Some, like Route 6 commuter bus and the Route 10 express between Santa Monica College and Union Station will not operate at all during the summer while the college is not in full swing.
The changes come in response to a planning process meant to streamline bus service, make the schedule easier to remember and generally reduce overcrowding on popular lines, objectives that Ed King, director of Transit Services with City Hall, announced during his budget presentation to the City Council in May.
"The June service changes are relatively minor and incremental, but together they substantiate a significant increase in passenger comfort and convenience," the report reads.
The most significant changes occur on routes 3 and 7, which transport people all the way from the area around Los Angeles International Airport up San Vicente and down Pico Boulevard to mid-city Los Angeles, respectively.
The new schedule beefs up service on routes 2 and 3 to ameliorate summer traffic coming from the south. That'll mean more evening trips from Santa Monica to the Green Line Station near LAX between Thursday and Sunday, all the better to swing by the Twilight Concert Series starting July 11.
If you're used to getting on at Fourth Street and Civic Center Way, think again. That bus stop will be removed, and customers can get on at Fourth Street and Pico Boulevard.
The Rapid 3 will get a new bus stop of its own at Lincoln Boulevard and Mindanoa Way.
Route 7 will convert to a "memory schedule," meaning that buses will take off at the same minute mark each hour. They will also run more often during the week, departing every 12 minutes instead of every 15.
If the memory schedule works well, BBB leadership will look into expanding it across other lines, according to the report.
The plan envisages major changes along Route 4, which will no longer serve the Veteran's Administration north campus in both directions, and those departing from Santa Monica toward the Westside Pavilion will stay on San Vicente Boulevard and no longer travel on Montana Avenue to Bringham Street.
Five stops will be axed in both the east and westbound directions to reflect the change, with three new stops on San Vicente Boulevard at Barrington, Montana and Mayfield avenues.
Both routes 4 and 9 will abandon their normal weekday routes, instead using the weekend versions. That means that buses traveling southbound on Fourth Street will make a right on Colorado Avenue, left on Main Street and a left on Olympic Boulevard to Avenida Mazatlan.
Riders can get on either at Santa Monica Place or Avenida Mazatlan rather than the normal stops on Pico Boulevard at Fourth and Main streets.
Four trips along Route 12 at Robertson Boulevard and Venice Boulevard will be removed, but others within minutes of those regularly scheduled buses will still be in operation.
Changes will remain in effect until Aug. 25 and 26, when a new round of alterations will start up, according to the report.
ashley@www.smdp.com
