Line 570: The RTD Line That Never Was

It is well known that LADOT began commuter service between the San Fernando Valley and Century City on May 18, 1992, when Commuter Express Line 573 began operation. But what few people remember -- if they even knew in the first place -- is that RTD had been ready to go with a similar service a dozen years previous.

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It all started with a letter from an employee of a Century City-based public relations firm, who wrote RTD in December, 1979 asking if one of the then-popular "subscription services" could be established to ferry employees who lived in the Valley to and from work in Century City. Unfortunately, at that time RTD operated under a mandate to recover all of its operating costs for providing such services, and this usually meant that all the passengers on a subscription line had to be employees of the same company (said company guaranteeing that RTD's costs for providing the service were covered, even if ridership was low); therefore, the program had been limited to major companies like Atlantic Richfield (ARCO), Prudential Insurance, and Blue Cross. Without a single large employer to guarantee the expense, a Century City subscription service was not a possibility; but RTD's service planners did think the idea had merit, and they approached the Century City Chamber of Commerce with it.

The Century City Chamber was enthusiastic; their marketing director envisioned all kinds of promotional opportunities, and with that preliminary support, RTD service planners started working on a concept for a rush hour express service from the West Valley to Century City in the morning, with return service in the afternoon.

RTD had, within the previous year, begun providing a pair of subscription services -- Lines 512 and 514 -- for Blue Cross. Those lines were ferrying Blue Cross employees from their old facilities in the Crenshaw Center and Hollywood areas to their new headquarters in Warner Center, which meant the buses being used for that service operated in a "reverse direction" mode and were deadheading (the transit industry term for buses that operate to and from their garages, without passengers, to the terminal points of service) back to Division 7 in West Hollywood after their morning trips, then deadheading back to the Valley for the afternoon return trips. The RTD planners realized those buses could be used for the Century City express line, because the deadhead between Division 7 and Century City was far shorter and additional fare revenue was possible during what was now non-revenue time.

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A routing was devised to allow for limited-stop pickups along Fallbrook Ave., Victory Blvd., Topanga Canyon Blvd., and Ventura Blvd. (about a dozen stops in all), then operate via the San Diego Freeway and Wilshire Blvd. directly to Westwood and Century City, where another six limited stops were planned:



The Century City Chamber was favorably impressed with RTD's concept, and wrote a glowing letter of support for it in May to the RTD Board of Directors, who authorized staff to finish working on the concept for implementation. On July 10, 1980, the RTD Board approved Line 570, to operate five trips in each direction on weekdays (precisely matching the amount of combined Line 512 and 514 service then being provided, on a schedule that worked with the availability of those lines' equipment ... and the reassignment of the afternoon service work runs to Division 8 in Van Nuys), effective September 15:


And then, the bottom dropped out of the plan.

A private charter company, Commuter Bus, Inc. (ComBus, in their promotional literature) had filed in the intervening months for -- and received -- Public Utilities Commission approval to operate a single trip in each direction each weekday, timed to arrive around 8:15am in Century City, and depart for the Valley around 5:30pm. Upon learning of the RTD Board's approval of Line 570, ComBus cried foul ... loudly. They went to the media, who cheerfully reported of the dispute between RTD and this "poor little entrepreneur" (it was noted, at every opportunity, that ComBus' owner was going to have to lease a bus from a bigger company just to provide the one round trip), and they threatened to file a complaint with the PUC against RTD for violating its "franchise". The Century City Chamber, not wanting to look like a small business squasher, abruptly withdrew its support and started distributing promotional literature for the new ComBus service instead.

On August 14, 1980, with the timetables already having been printed for distribution, the RTD Board reversed itself and voted to cancel Line 570, one month and one day before its planned start date. The graphics on this page come from the only surviving copy of the timetable, included in the line record kept at Metro's headquarters, from which we obtained the facts of this ill-fated proposal. (Although the line records are generally kept only for lines that actually operated, because Line 570 had been approved and then officially cancelled, it too has a file.)

ComBus' service ran for about a year and a half before collapsing under the weight of high costs and low ridership. Without the flexibility of travel times that Line 570 would have provided, Century City employees were lukewarm to the ComBus service, and without the ability to also transport regular passengers (RTD had designed Line 570 so that it would also provide limited-stop service within the Ventura Blvd. corridor, no doubt to get the extra revenues those passengers would bring) ComBus died a slow, painful death. Sadly, it would be another ten years before LADOT would resurrect the concept, this time more successfully.

And, as Paul Harvey would say, now you know ... the rest of the story.

Timetable scans on this page
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