FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Antelope Valley Transit Authority

Contact: Pam Holland 661-729-2222

September 20, 2006

Transit Authority to improve recent service changes

LANCASTER - The Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA) will implement a modified time schedule for its fixed route service on September 30, 2006. There will be no change of fares, bus stops, or routes as introduced with the August 12, 2006 service change.

Fixed route changes put into service on August 12 included a decrease of service hours on the Routes 7, 4, 5, and 6; separation of the Route 1 and Route 6 as an interlined route so that smaller vehicles could be used on the Route 6; introduction of the Supplemental Route 99 to serve students of Lake L.A. attending Littlerock H.S.; remodeling of the Lake Los Angeles service to provide hourly service from Town Center Plaza into Lancaster or Palmdale on alternating hourly headways. A 25% fare increase was also implemented, affecting full and reduced fare on one way trips, 3-hour, all day, and 31-day passes.

“The upcoming changes will correct timing issues so that the printed schedule will accurately reflect when buses will arrive at the timepoints,” said AVTA Executive Director, Randy Floyd. “We’re also attempting to ensure that those using outlying routes with one hour headways will have reasonable wait times at the transfer points.”

Along with having to make budget adjustments to accommodate for the significant increase in fuel and operating costs, one of the greatest challenges the agency faced with the August 12 service change was to meet the government mandated Wage Order 9. For more information on this order, please refer to: http://www.dir.ca.gov/IWC/WageOrders2005/IWCArticle9.html.

In the effort to comply with Wage Order 9, AVTA lost the ability to provide a “pulse” service (where passengers arrive at the transfer centers within a 15-minute time period, making it convenient to board the next bus furthering them to their destination). Also lost was the ability to provide a “clockface” time schedule (meaning the bus always arrives at 10 minutes after the hour, as an example). 

“As soon as the August 12 service began, we realized there were some serious timing issues.” Floyd said, “We have been working diligently to correct this. We’re confident that the new time schedules will better serve our passengers. Our goal is to stabilize the system so that another change is not required this year.”

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