The Long Beach Transit Board of Directors decided yesterday to approve most proposed changes to bus routes, but stopped short of approving the Passport B route that would have connected downtown Long Beach to CSULB amid rapidly growing student ridership. The route would have gone down 4th Street and through Eliot Lane to the university, but after intense community feedback the Transit Board voted to terminate the route at Nieto and Colorado, where it will turn around and return downtown.
Additional buses will, however, be added to the 7th Street line to compensate for expanding use of public transportation by students. Also, proposed changes to Passport D replacing a route from CSULB to the Los Altos Center (on Bellflower) with a route from CSULB to the Outer Traffic Circle were approved.
In the Atlantic Avenue area downtown, plans to eliminate the 62 line were approved. Routes along the 62 will be merged into the 61, 63 and 66. Basically, the changes amount to the 62 route merging into those of the other three in order to provide more frequent service. The 61 now extends from downtown Long Beach to Jordan High School and west to the Artesia Blue Line station.
Other changes included splitting the 7 line into new 71 and 72 routes, and stopping the 181 and 182 at the downtown Transit Mall rather than continuing east on 4th Street to Colorado Lagoon.
Also approved was an incremental fare increase that will begin in February 2010. The fare increase was approved last year but needed to be re-confirmed before being implemented. One alteration to the original plan is that the Passport route downtown will remain free.
We’ll have more information on the route changes shortly.