bus bus bus bus

Monday, October 04, 2004, at 03:06PM

By Eric Richardson

I took the bus to campus today. I've done that a half dozen or so times now. A couple times I've gotten lucky, and the bus has been there right after I got to the stop. Today was not one of those days. I walked down to the bus sign and checked my clock: 10:24. A DASH D passes. And another. And another... 5 in all before my Metro Line 38 finally shows up at 10:42.

A couple hours later I needed to head back downtown to go to the Central Library. I was going to borrow Kathy's car, but then thought better of it and walked over to catch the DASH F. Unlike the D, the F has 12-minute headways -- or so they say. I sat down and 18 minutes later the bus showed up, and within the next stop or two was packed. I don't really understand why LADOT makes such a big deal about 5-minute headways with most of the rest of the downtown DASH lines but stays with optimally 12-minute headways on the Expo Park line. Every time I've been on this bus it's been packed, and with the number of USC students being forced to move downtown it's only going to get worse.

There was an LADOT guy on the bus having people fill out little surveys. I registered my complaints, or at least as much as could be registered via marking the "Frequency of Service" box poor.