What is the present situation with the Orange Line and its promise for the future?
The Orange Line has been one of the MTA’s greatest successes in a long time. It is the most successful bus rapid transit project in the country. When it opened in November of 2005, MTA estimated the ridership would be between 5,000 and 7,000 people a day on weekdays. But it opened to an average of 16,000 riders—we were at 75 percent of capacity. A year later, we had passed 20,500. And this past April, we actually set the all-time record at 23,814 passengers per day, which compared with April of last year is an increase of close to 40 percent. About 18 percent of the people riding the Orange Line in its first year were people who had never ridden public transit in Los Angeles before. One out of five people got out of their cars to ride the line. Few people supported the Orange Line when we first proposed it, but we dealt with every one of the concerns. It is the safest line in the MTA system. We spent $18 million of the $330 million spent on the project on landscaping. Regarding noise,
