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November
13, 2002 |
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Metro Rapid Program Selected as Semi-Finalist in Harvard University’s 2002 Innovations In American Government Awards
(Los Angeles) - MTA’s
Metro Rapid bus program has been selected as a semifinalist in Harvard
University’s 2002 Innovations in American Government Awards. The awards
recognize outstanding examples of creative problem solving in the public
sector. “We are honored to
have been chosen as a semifinalist for this prestigious award,” said MTA
CEO Roger Snoble. “Metro Rapid has succeeded beyond anyone’s
expectations at meeting the needs of our existing passengers and
generating new transit ridership on two busy L.A. corridors by producing
an increase in bus speed unheard of in a major U.S. city.” Metro Rapid was
launched in June 2000 with a 26-mile line on the Wilshire/Whittier
corridor that operates from Santa Monica to Montebello via downtown Los
Angeles, and a 16-mile line that operates on Ventura Boulevard from the
Metro Red Line Universal City Station to Warner Center in the west San
Fernando Valley. Metro Rapid has
succeeded in reducing travel times by nearly 30 percent and increasing
total bus ridership in the two corridors by nearly 40 percent. One third
of the ridership increase is patrons new to transit. Buoyed by this success,
the MTA Board earlier this year approved a 24-line expansion of Metro
Rapid beginning this December with the startup of lines on Vermont Avenue
and South Broadway. The expansion will be completed by 2008. Key to Metro Rapid’s
performance is the employment of a bus signal priority system designed by
the Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), MTA’s partner in
the awards competition. The signal priority system reduces the time Metro
Rapid buses sit at traffic signals by lengthening green signals and
shortening red signals up to 10 seconds. Other important
attributes which contribute to Metro Rapid’s success include the use of
low-floor buses, the location of stations approximately 0.8 miles apart at
major intersections similar to light rail service, and frequency-based
scheduling. The Innovations in
American Government Award is a program of the Institute for Government
Innovation in partnership with the Council for Excellence in Government.
The Institute is funded through an endowment from the Ford Foundation. The
Innovations Program tracks public innovation through frequent contact with
practitioners and policy makers and through federal, state and local
government conferences, public management research networks, media, and
trade and public interest publications. All levels of
government ¾
federal, state, local, tribal and territorial ¾
within the United States are eligible for recognition and may submit
applications. Each program is evaluated according to criteria including
its novelty, the degree to which the program demonstrates a leap of
creativity; its effectiveness, the degree in which the program has
achieved tangible results; its significance, the degree to which the
program successfully addresses an important problem of public concern; and
its transferability, the degree to which the program, or aspects of it,
shows promise of inspiring successful replication by other governmental
entities. Since it began in 1986,
the annual competition has recognized 295 innovative programs and awarded
them a total of $17.9 million in grants. MTA-099 |
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