Last Monday, the Long Beach Transit board of directors finally made the proposed changes to select LBT bus lines. The changes include eight approvals to routes but one rejection that would have benefited student bus riders.
With the residents in "extreme opposition" for a bus going through their residential area, Passport B will not travel east on Fourth Street to CSULB via Bellflower Boulevard and East State University Drive as proposed, Marcelle Epley, a marketing manager for LBT told the Daily49er.
Now Passport B will be ending at Nieto Avenue before it loops back down to Downtown Long Beach.
Originally, there was plenty of support for and opposing the Passport B changes. The majority of support for the changes involved students.
While Passport B will not help accommodate students, Passport D has several changes that will help the student bus riders. Stops will now be added at the Outer Circle between Atherton Street and Los Coyotes Diagonal, with another stop being added on Atherton Street and Ximeno Avenue, a location that is near many apartment complexes in which students reside. The stops at the Los Altos Market Center will now only be served by the 90 routes.
Route 62 will now be merged with Route 61 in order to increase the frequency of service. However, this will eliminate some stops from Artesia Boulevard to Alondra Boulevard that the 62 will have served, but the 72 will include some of these stops in its revised route. New stops will also be added on Atlantic Avenue.
Also with changes are Routes 72 and 71, which now take the place of Route 7. There will no longer be service on Sixth and Seventh Streets, but there will be some stops that will help cover the lack of service. Routes 181 and 182 will now end at Transit Mall and now Passport B will service the area east of the mall up to Colorado Lagoon.
Along with these changes is a change of increased bus fare, though CSULB students will still be able to take advantage of the U-Pass program, giving them unlimited free bus rides with any LBT line.
The changes will begin taking effect Feb. 14. More information can be found at the Long Beach Transit homepage.
Photo source: visitlongbeach.com
