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Line 545 was one of one of five "transportation demand management" (TDM) shuttle lines -- paid for with federal ISTEA (Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act) funds, a CMAQ (Congestion Management Air Quality) grant, and local Proposition C sales tax revenue -- that MTA implemented shortly after it came into existence. As originally planned (first map, below), Line 545 was designed to be a fast express connection between the Metrolink Sylmar/San Fernando Station and industrial/business parks in the Chatsworth and Northridge areas. Both Line 545 and Line 624 ("West Hills Loop") were part of a experiment to operate five shuttle or circulator lines using lower-paid operators from the MTA "Business Development Operating Facility" (BDOF) which was part of the contract with the United Transportation Union at that time; the provision allowed completely new services to be operated by a "second tier" of bus operators who were still MTA employees. The other three lines were Line 621 ("Local Limo"), Line 622 ("Rabbit Transit" El Segundo-LAX), and Line 623 ("Rabbit Transit" Westchester-LAX); the first BDOF-operated line was Line 515 ("Blue Line Transfer" El Segundo-Artesia Station), which began operation on August 23, 1993. However, the day before Line 545 was scheduled to begin operation (January 17, 1994), the Northridge earthquake damaged a section of the Simi Valley Freeway (SR-118) which was to be part of the express routing. Start of service was delayed until January 24, when Line 545 was placed on a detour around the damaged freeway section. On February 21, 1994, the service was reversed to better take advantage of the surface street operation to and from Sylmar (second map). The one good thing that came of the earthquake was that LADOT accelerated construction of Sylmar/San Fernando Metrolink Station and opened it more than two months ahead of schedule. However, deprived of its freeway route segment, the now ill-named "Highway Hummer" took close to an hour to travel the relatively short distance between Sylmar and the northwest Valley and it never caught on with the public. Even after a schedule revision in mid-August, 1994, to better coordinate service with the Metrolink Antelope Valley line, and the inclusion of Line 545 in the San Fernando Valley Transit Restructuring Study, which proposed restructuring it to serve Warner Center, Line 545 ceased operation June 25, 1995. (The 1995 staff report proposing the cancellation of the TDM shuttles contains ridership data showing the poor performance of Line 545.) BDOF was subsequently used to operate lower-ridership and peak-hour services that had not been contracted out (such as Lines 168 and 426) and later became a full-fledged "entry level" process in the UTU contract. |
