Blue Bus Continues Detour on Marquez

As children returned to class after spring break on Tuesday, the Santa Monica Big Blue Bus (BBB) company continued its Route 9 detour through the Marquez Knolls neighborhood (on Marquez Avenue).

The detour began after the L.A. Department of Transportation (DOT) removed a “buses exempt” sign from the corner of west Marquez and Sunset. The DOT removed the sign after a fatal motorcycle accident took the life of 25-year-old Patrick O’Dell on November 20, according to City officials.  O’Dell struck a BBB bus, which was making a U-turn, at the corner of west Marquez and Sunset. This led to Santa Monica buses travelling westbound on Sunset to detour from east Marquez to west Marquez before heading eastbound on Sunset.  Santa Monica BBB buses now travel through the narrow two-way street with three schools (Marquez Charter Elementary, Le Lycée Français and Montessori School) instead of Sunset. During morning and afternoon hours, the street is known to have substantial school traffic.

“Our PTA has written a letter to DOT asking for a solution,” Marquez Elementary Principal Emily Williams told the Palisadian–Post on Tuesday morning. “The school already deals with a complicated traffic situation and we’re working hard to resolve it.”

Williams said that the bus route would only make matters worse. “I’ve asked for [an end date to the detour] but they didn’t give it to me.”

Before the sign was removed, buses traveling westbound on Sunset were legally allowed to turn right on west Marquez and maneuver around the large triangle at the intersection before making a U-turn from the stop sign.

Standing next to the coned-off carpool lane in front of the school Tuesday morning, which is set up from 7:45 a.m. to 8:25 a.m. and then again from 1:30 p.m. to 2: 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, Williams said that luckily no buses have come through during the school’s peak traffic hours.

“They do have a time listed for the bus route during our peak hours,” William said. “I don’t think it has happened yet, but it’s scheduled.”

The BBB detour began on March 8 despite the fact that DOT officials advised in January that Marquez was not an acceptable route for municipal buses.

“Since Marquez is not a suitable route for buses as the MTA test run showed, DOT will also ask BBB not to use this route,” wrote Keyvan Shahrouz, DOT transportation planning associate, in an email to City and BBB officials on January 28.

Also, on Tuesday morning, BBB spokesperson Suja Lowenthal and Amy Kalp, vice president of the LAPD West Bureau Traffic Committee, were at the corner of west Marquez and Sunset observing empty BBB buses test turn-around maneuvers at the intersection.

Lowenthal told this reporter at the location that “We are not prepared to discuss any of [the alternate solutions] right now.”

As of Tuesday, the Santa Monica bus line was not offering service at the following stops on the westbound side of Sunset Boulevard: Marquez (Baylor), Livorno Drive and Arno Way. Therefore, passengers traveling westbound have to wait for the return stop on the opposite side of Sunset (eastbound side) and cross the street to reach these destinations.

In a March 11 article in the Santa Monica Daily Press, Lowenthal stated that the detour was not related to any traffic accident and that BBB had been “looking to make the change for some time for our drivers to have a proper layover [a break a bus driver takes at the end of a trip before the return route].”

“The longer the DOT takes, the longer we have to run this detour,” she told the SM Daily Press.

“It is in the best interest of the school and residential community for DOT to expedite its review and approve the alternative keeping BBB at Sunset and Marquez,” Lowenthal wrote to Williams.

Metro buses are also supposed to use an alternate detour from Sunset to avoid the now-prohibited U-turn.  Metro officials previously told the Post that their buses will detour from Sunset by heading down Temescal Canyon Road and northbound on Pacific Coast Highway before looping back eastbound on Sunset. As the BBB officials were conducting test runs Tuesday morning, Metro bus 7451 that was traveling westbound, made the prohibited U-turn. This move made one of the BBB officials smirk and shake his head.