Geographic Distribution of

Metro Bus Service

“Enhancements”Francis Reilly | UP 206a | Nov. 2, 2010

Project Overview

• The Metro Board of Directors has approved changes to bus service that will reduce Metro’s bus service by about 3.7 percent, effective Dec. 12, 2010. The cuts include the elimination of five Rapid bus lines, including the 711, 714, 715, 753 and 920, although local service will be enhanced to mitigate the effects.

• The Bus Riders’ Union contends that these cuts will mean longer waits, more overcrowding, and more transfers, resulting in added financial burden to bus riders. Further, the BRU points out that the cuts will affect South and Southeast LA the hardest, where 3 rapid lines and 5 local lines were cut, and greatly affects minority and low-income riders. These cuts represent a rollback of Metro’s consent decree with the BRU from their 1994 Title VI lawsuit.

• This mapping project looks at the distribution of the service cuts and the demographics of the surrounding neighborhoods.

Skills: Inset map, Rapid routes coded thru attribute sub-set selection

Rapid Bus Routes & Percent Minority Residents

Census Tracts: Percent Minority

Skills: Aggregate attribute fields Percent Minority = [(Pop. Black + Pop. Hispanic) / Total Pop.] * 100

Central LA County has a heavy concentration of minorities & is where Rapid routes are focused.

Heavier transit use (relative to LA) in almost all areas with Rapid lines.

Skills: Point graduated symbol

Workers Commuting by Transit

Density of transit use downtown and in minority neighborhoods.

Workers Commuting by Transit(Downtown Inset)

Households Without Vehicles

Transit Dependency Index

Skills: Index

Transit Dependency Index = {[zero car hholds] + [<15,000 hhold income]}/10

Rapid Service Cuts with ½ Mile Buffer

Skills: Buffering

Buffer created to estimate ped shed.

Next Steps

Skills: Charts/images

• Look at boardings data & redundant routes

• Extract info from buffer

• Perform network analysis

References

• ESRI shapefiles (http://arcdata.esri.com/data/tiger2000/tiger_download.cfm)

• Metro Rapid shapefiles (http://developer.metro.net/)

• US Census 2000 Summary File 3 (http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DatasetMainPageServlet?_program=DEC&_submenuId=datasets_1&_lang=en)