Line 201 (Silver Lake Blvd. - Glendale)

The 2005 service change program started a process that restructured Line 201 in phases. Rather than create separate pages for each service change proposal, we are treating the entire period from December, 2005 through (so far) June, 2008 as a series of related changes and presenting those changes in chronological order on a single page.

Metro San Gabriel Valley originally proposed a cutback of Line 201 in the Glendale area, at the Glendale Galleria (eliminating the service primarily on Chevy Chase Dr. - Glenoaks Blvd. shown in red at the top of the map), in addition to restructuring in the Silver Lake area (removing service from a portion of Brunswick Ave., Atwater Ave. and Glendale Blvd.; the removed segment of Fletcher Dr. is duplicated by Line 603).

After consultation with the city of Glendale, a modified version of the proposal was approved for implementation. On December 18, 2005, service was realigned in Atwater Village and the Silver Lake area using Chevy Chase Dr. between Brunswick Ave. and San Fernando Rd., rather than the originally proposed routing via Los Feliz Blvd.; the routing via West Silver Lake Blvd. was retained. Service was planned to be eliminated between the Galleria and Glenoaks Park, but after the public hearing it was decided to continue that service on an interim basis, using a new routing via Glendale Ave. and California Ave. that replaced service on Jackson St. and Lexington Ave.

On December 17, 2006, service was made permanent between the Galleria and Glendale Adventist Medical Center, using a routing via Broadway and Chevy Chase Dr., and service between the Medical Center and Glenoaks Park was canceled. To better clarify, these two maps are close-ups of the affected areas. Red designates canceled route segments, blue designates route segments originally proposed but not implemented, green designates the temporary routing between the Galleria and Adventist Medical Center used between December, 2005 and December, 2006, and yellow designates new permanent route segments.

The 1998 Westside Transit Service Restructuring Study originally proposed the elimination of service in Atwater Village, as shown at left.

According to data provided by Metro SGV, prior to these changes ridership on Line 201 dropped from a daily average of 168 northbound/141 southbound passengers per day at the Galleria to 30 northbound/44 southbound at Adventist Medical Center, then to 9 per day to/from the final Glenoaks Park stop. This had brought the overall average number of passengers per hour to 24.3, which made Line 201 the 13th worst performing line in the Metro system. (Any line with a performance index rating below 60% is considered poor-performing; at the time of the original proposal, Line 201's rating was 46.2%.) Nevertheless, Glendale Beeline started a "special" Glenoaks Canyon Shuttle along the canceled Line 201 segment the day after Metro SGV cutback the line. (They now appear to have discovered that Metro was correctly calculating ridership ... or the lack thereof: As of August 20, 2007 Glendale reduced service to two round trips each in morning and afternoon peak hours and one round trip at the noon hour, weekdays only.)

The story is not yet complete: Since Line 201 appeared on the Metro staff report listing the 25 worst performing lines in the Metro System (requested by the Metro Board of Directors when they approved the FY 2007-08 budget, and released in July, 2007), a proposal to cutback the route at Vermont/Beverly Station (similar to a realignment that took place for one day in 2000 as part of the Metro Red Line bus/rail interface restructuring) and cancel weekend service was approved as part of the June, 2008 service change program but not implemented.

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