Long Beach Transit

History

Long Beach Transit began operation in 1963 at the time the Pacific Electric Railway was discontinuing service. The primary service area of Long Beach Transit has been the city of Long Beach and to a limited extent the enclave city of Signal Hill, but it has also provided service to surrounding communities in Los Angeles County, including Lakewood, Cerritos, Norwalk, and Seal Beach in neighboring Orange County.

The company has operated various types of bus services. During the 1970s and 1980s, it also ran small shuttle buses in the downtown area, called DASH (for Downtown Area Short Hops), and because the routes were shorter, the fare was lower than on the regular buses.

Originally, bus transfers could be obtained upon payment of $0.05 for local transfers, and $0.10 for "interagency transfers", which allow transfer to another bus line without additional payment (except for express service). Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, instead of using a common transfer with the route number punched on the transfer, each route had its own transfer with the route number printed on them. For transfers to other bus lines, Long Beach Transit used the consolidated Los Angeles County interagency transfer, which every bus company in Los Angeles County except RTD and Orange County Transit District (now Orange County Transportation Authority) used (both RTD and OCTD regular transfers worked for both their own buses and as an interagency transfer). The consolidated interagency transfer used by all the other transit agencies even had a check box naming the twelve bus companies in the county, and the driver would punch the box for the particular agency that issued the transfer. During the mid-1970s (sometime between 1972 and 1976), for a period of six months, a special subsidy was available. All bus trips in Los Angeles County were reduced from approximately $0.80 to $1.25, to $0.25 on weekdays and Saturdays, and $0.10 on Sunday (bus trips outside the county were subject to the regular rate). As a result, the issuance of transfers was discontinued for all trips within Los Angeles County. When the subsidy ended, the old price returned and bus companies resumed issuing transfers.

In the early 1980s, the company changed its transfer system. Instead of using books of transfers, every bus has a ticket printer, which issues the three types of transfers: regular transfers, which allow the user to transfer to a different route; "emergency" transfers (typically used if the customer becomes sick and has to get off the bus), which allow the user to get back on the same route; and interagency transfers, which allow the user to transfer to a different bus company (and gave the user an additional 1 hour of time before it expires), such as Orange County Transit, MTA, Norwalk Transit and Cerritos Transit (now Cerritos on Wheels) buses. In case of machine failure, however, operators would still carry one book of each kind of transfers.

Effective in 1999, Long Beach Transit instituted a day pass, and on July 1, 2005, it eliminated transfers within the system, although the interagency transfer is available for transfers to other transit systems.

Water taxis

Long Beach Transit also operates the 49-passenger AquaBus water taxi, which stops at the RMS Queen Mary, West Coast Hotel of Long Beach, Catalina Landing, Aquarium of the Pacific, the Pine Avenue Circle, and Shorline Village (The Shorline Village Dock is under repairs); and the 75-passenger AquaLink water taxi, which travels between the Queen Mary, the Aquarium, and Alamitos Bay Landing next to the Long Beach Marina.

Renumbering

Originally, Long Beach Transit operated its bus lines as a consecutive set of route numbers, from 1 to 18. The numbers had no significance except that route 1 ran along State Route 1, the Pacific Coast Highway. (This is the same number currently used by the Orange County Transit Authority for its route that runs on Route 1.) Some routes had more than one routing; for example, the number 9 route ran from Downtown along 7th Street to California State University, Long Beach. All of the route 9 buses would continue along Bellflower Boulevard, whereupon one would terminate at Bellflower and Stearns Street; one would turn at Willow Street and continue along Woodruff Avenue; another would continue on Bellflower all the way to Alondra Boulevard; and another would also continue to Alondra but take a slight detour to the Lakewood Center shopping mall.

Possibly due to the successful renumbering which RTD had done in 1983, Long Beach Transit also decided to renumber its routes. In the mid-1980s, the company changed some of its route numbers, keeping the original 1- or 2-digit number and adding a single digit after the number.This was done to routes which split and serviced multiple streets and destinations. The route 9, as indicated above, was renumbered into routes 91, 92, 93, and 94, based on the street and destination while routes that only served one street and destination remained the same with their original 1 or 2 digit route number, example Line 1 which still remains. Additional routes have since been added, generally using the same system. For example, if a route extends part of an existing route, it takes the first one (or two) digits of the major route number, then adds a new additional digit on the end. This is why there is now a route 96, which did not exist at the time of the original route 9.

AquaBus

The AquaBus is a summer service water taxi that has six "ports of call": Dock 4 of the Aquarium of the Pacific, Queen Mary, Shoreline Village at Parker's Lighthouse, Catalina Landing, Dock 7 of Pine Avenue Circle, and Hotel Maya. The fare is $1.

AquaLink

The AquaLink is a summer service 68-foot water taxi that ferries up to 75 passengers to the most popular attractions in Long Beach Harbor and on down to Alamitos Bay Landing. The fare is $5, and wheelchair boarding is available at Dock 4 near the Aquarium of the Pacific and at the Queen Mary.

Fares

Long Beach Transit is free to Metrolink/EZ Pass holders, wheelchair/blind riders & children under 5 (maximum 2 per accompanying adult). On April 28, 2014, Long Beach Transit started using TAP cards.

Fleet information

Long Beach Transit was the first transit agency to operate the iconic General Motors RTS bus in the late 1970s. It would continue to order the RTS in different forms until the early 1990s. Although all of its RTS buses have been retired, its first RTS was retained as a historical bus for a time before being donated to a museum in Pennsylvania for that purpose.

As of 2016, Long Beach Transit's fleet is composed mainly of the New Flyer Industries GE40LF, GE40LFA (gasoline-electric hybrid) & Gillig BRT Plus models, with thirteen New Flyer XN60 articulated buses, a decreasing number of New Flyer D40LF models, and one Prevost coach used for charters. Long Beach Transit is the first transit agency in the world to introduce production-model hybrid gasoline-electric buses into passenger service, with features similar to those of a Toyota Prius. The E-Power Bus (GE40LF), built by New Flyer, will be used on all of Long Beach Transit's routes as they are brought into service.

Long Beach Transit also operates 42 Gillig BRT Plus models, with #1201 being the first CNG Bus in the entire Gillig Low Floor Line. #1201 was ordered and delivered in 2011 as a Pilot Bus and to test the CNG technology for the Low Floor/BRT. In the following year, Long Beach Transit placed an order for 32 buses, mostly to replace the aging 1997 D40LFs. In September of the same year, as part of a major overhaul to the Passport, Long Beach Transit placed an additional order of 31 buses, as a major replacement the Chance Opus buses running before on The Passport(s). As of 2015, 42 of these buses are in service, although additional orders are unlikely, as Long Beach Transit is mostly interested in the New Flyer XN40.

Buses have four-digit numbers, of which the first two digits of the number represent either the year the bus was put into service or the number of passengers the bus has capacity for. Buses numbered in the 9000 series were placed into service during the 1990s, buses in the 2000–2900 series were placed into service during the 2000s, and buses in the 4300–4900 series seat 43 and 49 passengers respectively.

Long Beach Transit operated thirteen 60-foot New Flyer D60LFs and had options for ten more, but due to new regulations that restricted the purchase of new diesel buses (and the absence of any non-diesel articulated from New Flyer at the time) those buses ended up with Golden Gate Transit in Northern California as assignable options and were delivered in 2007. The D60LFs has since been replaced with XN60s.

Ten electric buses will be purchased from BYD for $11.7 million. They will operate on the Passport routes beginning in fall 2016.

Fleet roster

Note: † = Buses that are powered from gasoline fuel though powered by a hybrid propulsion system