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Community Corner

Transit Tales: Busing the Beach Cities

Part 2 of our three-part transit series looks at how the local bus line strives to offer eco-friendly and easy travel throughout the county.

After picking up a bus passenger at the Green Line station in Redondo Beach, Roni Hodges resumed her Beach Cities Transit run, which takes her on a 14-mile loop through residential avenues and commercial streets to the ocean and back.

She was driving the 102 bus that threads its way from the light-rail station in the northern tip of Redondo Beach along a southwesterly jaunt to King Harbor before returning on a route that will circle the South Bay Galleria.

In addition to this trek, Hodges also has driven the Beach Cities Transit's 109 bus, which travels through Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach on a coastal route to the Redondo Pier, as well as the 104 bus that makes its way to Riviera Village on the southern tip of the Beach Cities.

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In her job, Hodges has driven the paratransit system vehicles and full-size buses filled with business workers heading for their jobs, students on their way to school, maids and laborers journeying to work, sun worshippers bound for the beach and others who are merely happy to pay the full $1 fare.

“I have some regulars I always see,” said Hodges, who described her age as “over a quarter century and less than two decades.”

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She has been driving for Beach Cities Transit for nearly four years while working the local beach routes.

“I enjoy the drive,” she said. “I haven’t had any troubles. People are usually pretty nice.”

For many local residents, the Beach Cities Transit, with its fleet of brightly painted buses, is the most recognizable symbol of the public transportation system in the area. 

Local buses and bus stops are marked by the transit system’s distinctive logo: a silhouette of a surfer riding a wave through the letters BCT.

The community-based transit system includes the three fixed routes that not only go through the Beach Cities with a north-south connection to El Segundo but also provides an east-west link to Torrance. 

The buses share parts of their routes with several bus lines of the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), including bus lines 130, 232, 438 and 126 lines, as they crisscross the Beach Cities.

The local transit system is considered part of an integral public transportation system that includes the light-rail system’s Green Line and the long-haul MTA buses.

For bus drivers like Hodges, their job is a simple one: transport people while being as pleasant and as helpful as she can.

Hodges smiled as she accepted the fares of two talkative teenagers who boarded her paratransit bus on Rindge Lane in Redondo Beach on Sunday afternoon. 

She also welcomed a man in workout clothes who juggled several bags as he stepped aboard at a bus stop outside a medical center.

At the Redondo Pier, she greeted locals and tourists who had spent the day at the beach and were now headed back to their homes or to the South Bay Galleria transit hub to catch the MTA buses or to the Green Line for a trip on the light-rail system.

As Hodges made another swing through her now familiar route, she assisted a man in a wheelchair who boarded the bus with the help of an electric lift that was balky at first but was finally coaxed into position to the smiles of the driver and her passenger.

That same afternoon, Hodges listened as passenger Frank Gonzalez of Walnut Park marveled at the local transit system and explained how he had taken the Green Line from his home in the southeastern portion of Los Angeles County and connected with a local bus to make it to the South Bay.

“We woke up this morning and thought, ‘It’s a beautiful day. Let’s go to the beach,’” said Gonzalez, who was with his 14-year-old son and 20-year-old nephew.

“I’ve driven to Redondo Beach before but here I save the gas money by not driving,” he said, adding, “and all that’s good for the environment.”

Eco-friendly bus service is a goal of Beach Cities Transit, which notes on its published schedule that its vehicles are powered by compressed natural gas and funded in part by air pollution reduction funds.

As for those entrusted to make the transit system work, bus drivers like Hodges are the closest to ground level.

While driving down Artesia Boulevard, nearing the end of her shift, Hodges turned her head when she heard the honk of a motorist in the next lane. She smiled broadly when she recognized the woman in the yellow car.

“She’s one of the regular riders, but she told me she was going to get a car,” Hodges said. “And she promised to show it to me.”

Does that mean she’s lost a customer for good? Hodges shook her head and smiled. She hoped not. 

Next: Some residents are leaving their cars behind for bike travel. In Part 3 of Transit Tales, Patch looks at the latest developments with the South Bay Bike Master Plan.

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