20 more buses next year. The Santa Monica Police Department has eight BMW motorcycles that were bought in 2000 and have reached their 60,000-mile buy-back limit. They will be returned to A & S BMW Motorcycles and replaced with eight 2004 models for $159,329. City Hall could be refunded as much as $9,258 per motorcycle, depending on their condition when they are returned. Similarly, the new models will qualify for a guaranteed buy-back of up to $9,433 after three years, or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first.
Dial-a-Ride service = $1.7M Another multi-million expenditure expected to be approved tonight is for the city’s Dial-a-Ride service, which offers rides anywhere in the city for 50 cents to Santa Monica residents who are at least 60 years old, or have a disability. The City Council is being asked to approve $1.7 million to pay for a three-year contract with Transportation Concepts to provide the service. The transit service picks up residents at their door and takes them where ever they want to go in Santa Monica. On designated days, trips are offered to medical facilities outside of Santa Monica. Evening service and monthly shopping excursions also are offered. City Hall currently contracts with the company, but the agreement ends on Sept. 30.
Traffic light system = $286K Another $286,000 may be spent on a new traffic signal system that will automatically synchronize 48 lights throughout Santa Monica.
The system, which would be installed for the lights bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, Ocean Avenue, and Pico and Lincoln boulevards, is designed to manage traffic automatically instead of manually, as it’s done now.
Traffic signals are currently coordinat-ed by time, but the clock in each controller operates independently and has to be set manually at each location, city staff said.
The city’s transportation engineer will be able to use information gathered by the system to monitor traffic and signals to optimize timing plans for a variety of patterns that occur on weekends and holidays without city employees having to do it.
City Hall plans to eventually put all 150 traffic lights in Santa Monica on the system. The cost of the expansion will be about $1,100 per intersection, city staff said. The initial purchase comes with a one-year warranty that includes the setup, training, hardware and software support. After the warranty expires, a yearly maintenance contract is estimated to cost $8,000 a year.
The company expected to be hired, Econolite Control Products, set up the system in Salt Lake City before the Winter Olympics, as well as in all cities in Arizona.
Big Blue Bus service analysis = $144K Along with the new buses, a service improvement program that will cost Santa Monica taxpayers $143,973 is expected to be approved.
The City Council is asked to execute a contract with Perteet Engineering, Inc. to prepare an analysis of the Big Blue Bus’ services. It includes passenger counts at every stop for every trip on every route, as well as the number of passengers who ride each segment of each route, a transfer count by route and whether the drivers are maintaining their schedules.
Passengers will be surveyed with a questionnaire to determine the type of fare they paid, where they got on the bus and where they got off, as well as their feelings on how the service could be improved. The analysis is expected to be completed in April.
The analysis is done every three years to obtain data which is required for a short range development plan and allows the Big Blue Bus to get federal and state funding.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 9, 2003. Read the original PDF.