Council Approves DASH Changes; Creates New Central City East Route
Eric Richardson
[Flickr]
DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES — Council today approved the recommendations of a Downtown DASH study that would reroute the DASH A, eliminate the City Hall Shuttle and use a freed up bus to create a new route serving Central City East. The newly approved route will run in a clockwise circuit, passing by Little Tokyo, Central City East and the Flower Market.
The DASH A route will be modified to serve the City's Figueroa Plaza property. Instead of turning south on Hope, the service will swing west to Freemont street before coming south on Figueroa. A signal change at 3rd street will allow the bus to make it's way over to Flower and continue south.
DOT told council that the changes have to wait for the newly-approved signal work to be completed, and that the new services could be in operation in three to four months.
LAofAnaheim on February 26, 2008, at 03:08PM – #1
DASH recommendation: South Park to Historic Core via Hope Street to 7th street to Main/Spring
Definitly outside of the most obvious recommendation; LONGER HOURS!!!
Urban Bruin on February 26, 2008, at 04:24PM – #2
Yes, DASH needs longer hours. I have to finish up work early to catch the last 6:30 DASH. Also more weekend routes and hours.
SeanYodaRouse on February 26, 2008, at 05:32PM – #3
I would love to see LAofAnaheim's suggested route. Ditto on the longer hours.
When the Broadway streetcar idea was raised, my comment was, "I'd be happy with an evening DASH route. At least it would be an easy start."
Don Garza on February 26, 2008, at 06:51PM – #4
Thank you Jan Perry for the DASH Bus in Central City East. I am one of the residents who asked for this DASH many years ago. Actually, I was the first to ask for it because of the high cost of bus travel for those who had found themselves homeless. Women with CHildren who needed to leave for other places downtown also were those with problems using the MTA buses to get to places they needed to be to get help . The biggest problem I saw was when the bus strike happened and Central City East was completely inaccessible on regular MTA due to the strike and the lack of DASH service out of skid row to get to other DASH buses. You could actually use the DASH system to get around Los Angeles if you planned your trip right.
Handing out tokens is something that can be abused and we saw many people selling them on the streets and sometimes residents and those in the social service agencies, would say that they were never passed out.
By being able to just pay a quarter to get to certain connections of the Downtown Dash and the Community Dash Systems many people in central city east and those employees in Central City East will be able to easily transfer to other locations without having to spend lot's of money on passes.
MOst if not all of the case management in central city east are bus riders. Many of our security guards here at SRO Housing Corporation were also telling me how important a DASH would be . Los Angeles Mission employees were also wanting Downtown DASH service.
It will be intersting to see which service we will get. There was talk that a central city east dash would not run on the frequency of the DASH service but would run like the community DASH at 25 minute intervals .
Metro Local on February 26, 2008, at 08:58PM – #5
The Ralphs Express:
"South Park to Historic Core via Hope Street to 7th street to Main/Spring"
Eric Richardson (@blogdowntown) on February 26, 2008, at 09:38PM – #6
Don: If I recall the documents correctly, the Central City East DASH is designed to run 15 minute headways. It's one vehicle in a loop, but it's a pretty tight route.
Haven on February 27, 2008, at 12:50AM – #7
I agree with the proposed historic core to southpark route. please. currently it takes me 3 different dash routes. One would be nice.
BusTard on February 27, 2008, at 09:05AM – #8
A higher frequency of the DASH E (along 7th Street) would be nice as well. Despite LADOT stating that the E runs approximately every 5 minutes during rush hours, i can assure it does NOT. Too, it is daily that the westbound DASH fails to stop as soon as Spring and Broadway Streets (it starts at maple, if I recall) owing to it being overloaded with riders leaning against the inside of the front doors. (I have photos and videos of such incidents.) The E is a long-established route, and I imagine it should be easy to spruce up the route, especially as this problem is more than ten years olde. (I first started documenting it in 1996.)
Eric Richardson (@blogdowntown) on February 27, 2008, at 09:22AM – #9
BusTard: The E heading west in the evening is pretty scary. It can't be legal how many people they allow to pack on those buses. I would hate to see what would happen were one to ever get in an accident.