The horror of catenary

 

San Francisco Trolley Bus powered by overhead catenary lines.
Photo courtesy of By Pi.1415926535 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64552498

I am not a fan of Battery Electric Buses (BEBs) due to their expense and operational difficulties. We need to stop burning stuff that produces greenhouse gases, but we also need to provide the most bus service for the most riders possible. 

Buy American mandates for US transit agencies have them in a bind with too few American BEB manufacturers, all of them in and and out of bankruptcy, and difficulty getting repair parts. In fact, many BEBs have been mothballed despite billions spent on them and specialized charging infrastructure. 

I had always wondered why we didn't utilize the century-old technology of electric trolley buses powered by electricity from overhead lines (called Catenary). In California, only SF Muni still operates them in 2025. 

What is stopping other California agencies like LA Metro from using Trolley Buses? They are cheaper to buy, maintain, power and store. You need fewer of them compared to BEBs, which need to be taken out of service during the day to recharge. Trolley Buses can even be driven off-catenary using small (compared to fully BEBs) on-board batteries. 

CEQA happened. In 1970, then governor Ronald Reagan signed the California Environmental Quality Act into law. 

CEQA requires that any project needs to be evaluated against the status quo. Criteria include Visual Impact Assessment. Since a landscape with overhead wires always scores lower than the same landscape without overhead wires, you can't install them anywhere that doesn't have them. San Francisco still had overhead wires, so they were able to maintain and upgrade their overhead wires without running into CEQA veto points. Los Angeles once had catenary, but had already removed them by 1970s. 

There was no going back--until AB 2503 passed in 2024. Now, electric wires/catenary for buses and trains can be built without running the gauntlet of decades (yes, decades) of CEQA lawsuits. 

In May, 2025, we visited Berlin and took articulated electric buses, some that can run hybrid on and off catenary wires. They ran in dedicated bus lanes, often next to wide bike lanes. It was so easy to get around by bus in Berlin. We loved it. 

Look at the size of that bike lane!

We rode both German and Polish-built buses, which run on different lines. 

Narrower bike lane this time, but that's because road width is tight on a bridge. 

I was so impressed with the Solaris hybrid articulated buses. They can run up to 1/3 of the time off-catenary, can recharge while on catenary, and they never need charging during the day. They can move up to 100 people all day without interruptions of service. This means fewer buses serve more people. So cost-effective and clean. 

Oh, the 100-passenger bus needs only a 700 kWh battery. Compare that to the Tesla Y's 60-80 kWh to move 1 person around. Saves on material costs, too. 

Anyway, they accelerate/deaccelerate smoothly with just a quiet whirr. We really enjoyed sightseeing from inside the buses. I also rode my first double decker bus!

More on Berlin and our April-May Germany trip later. I still need to post pictures of our bicycle cruise on the Mekong Delta in February. My husband jokes that we save carbon by not driving (in Los Angeles!) and avoiding beef, and then blow our carbon budget on international travel. Fair enough. 

Motonormativity 2

I wrote an LA Voter newsletter (for members of League of Women Voters in Los Angeles County) article about Motonormativity and the way that local, state and federal governments reinforce it with their laws and actions. 

Professor Ian Walker wrote in the 2023 paper, Motonormativity: how social norms hide a major public health hazard, “Decisions about motor transport, by individuals and policy-makers, show unconscious biases due to cultural assumptions about the role of private cars - a phenomenon we term motonormativity.” 

His results were replicated in in the US by Professor Tara Goddard in the 2024 paper, Windshield Bias, Car Brain, Motornormativity: Different Names, Same Obscured Public Health Hazard. 

Past WIG speaker and public health researcher Isabella Chu, MPH, also spoke about the hidden public health hazard that is the top killer of US children. Indirectly, through air pollution and involuntary inactivity by making active transportation (walking, cycling) dangerous, cars may be the top killer of people in the developed world of all ages. 

Transportation, mainly private automobile use, is the largest contributor of CO2 emissions in Los Angeles County and the largest source of PM2.5 pollution (except in the occasional years when particulates from wildfire smoke affects populated areas of LACO.) 

Yet, all this is invisible to most people and especially law and policy makers. In California, it is legal to kill with a car as long as you were not intoxicated, were not speeding, and stayed at the scene of the death. This applies even if a driver kills a cyclist in a crosswalk. 

ILO wrote a letter to Metro’s Board of Directors for omitting protected bike lanes on the Vermont Ave BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) project plans. The City of LA’s Mobility Plan 2035 (adopted in 2014) promised to address identified shortcomings by 2035 by implementing the plan as each section of the roadways had work done. The Mobility Plan showed Vermont Ave would receive both a protected bike lane and a bus priority lane. 

Vermont Ave is infamous as more people die on Vermont Ave due to traffic violence than in the entire state of Vermont every year. (This does not include deaths due to pollution and other indirect deaths.) The LA Times explained the situation in Lawsuit filed against L.A. over lack of bike lanes, claiming Measure HLA violations. 

Local actions are even more important as we can no longer count on the Feds to help us. Under the Reagan Administration, Federal transportation dollars were allocated in a rigid formula of 80% to highways and 20% to transit. 

The Secretary of the Department of Transportation is Reality TV and Fox Business personality, Sean Duffy. He made headlines recently when he rode the NYC subway with NYC mayor Eric Adams and subsequently told Laura Ingraham on Fox News that "even big men don't want to ride the subway." 

In fact, riding the subway is 30 times safer than driving and riding the bus is 66 times safer than driving. 

“Most transit trips include active transport (walking and/or cycling) links, and transit users tend to walk and bike more in total than motorists (Lachapelle et al. 2011). These modes have relatively high per-mile casualty rates, although this risk is largely offset by reduced risks to other travelers and improved public fitness and health, so per capita crashes tend to decline and overall health and longevity increase with more active travel in a community (Rojas-Rueda et al. 2011).” 

Transit is so safe that a 1% increase in transit mode share would result in a 2.75% reduction in road deaths. 

State lawmakers show similar characteristics of motonormativity. Until September 6, 2023, Californians could purchase EVs (electric cars) secure in the knowledge that they would receive guaranteed rebates of up to $7,500 for each EV, and that these would stack on top of Federal rebates of $7,500. The income cap was $200,000 for joint filers. California passed out over $1 Billion in EV rebates. 

Contrast that with the California eBike incentive, which has an income cap of $61,320 for a family of 2, and which exhausted the entire $10 Million allocated to eBikes within minutes. eBikes received only 1% as much money as EVs, despite global research showing that dual-mode households drove 19% less than before they obtained an eBike. 

As I explained in my speech at the Women’s March on March 8, 2025, 

 “Transportation is a climate and feminist issue. CA DMV data shows that women will spend twice as many years aged out of driving as men. Yet, our cities have not built infrastructure for people who don’t drive. 

… Car dependency is not just ruinously expensive, but it’s destroying the planet, and preventing nondrivers from fully participating in society. Women, as primary caregivers, are paying the time tax of chauffeuring people around. Protected bike lanes are mobility lanes, suitable for children on bicycles and seniors on mobility scooters alike.   

Local government decisions have kept us isolated and stressed.”

SCAG, HQTA & RHNA Update

A college student reached out to me after reading SCAG, HQTA & RHNA: Acronyms you never heard of but should understand and I found the questions so intriguing, they deserved to be answered right here on the blog.  

First off, I think it's important to state that I used the Torrance Transit 8 bus line as an example, but I do not want to pick on Torrance Transit in particular. The example is just indicative of transit declines and difficulties in our region overall. 

 -How have you seen the quality of Torrance buses declined in the last 5 years? 

I wrote the post in 2022, when many people were working remotely from home. Those were the lowest years for transit service. In our area, transit service had declined for 15 years, and then fell off a cliff during Covid 2020. However, service is slowly being added back. We went from a high of 41 Torrance trips/weekday to 13-14, and we are back up to 24. I am cautiously optimistic that more service will be added as ridership returns and more bus drivers are hired. 

-What areas have you noticed the most decline? (cleanliness, punctuality, bus frequency) 

I notice the lack of bus frequency the most. Punctuality isn't a problem any more because the schedules are adjusted 2x/year for actual bus travel times. Buses report their real-time location and I can check how soon my bus is coming on my phone. Torrance Transit also provides a text number at each stop that sends a return text of when the next bus is arriving. 

While knowing when the next bus is arriving is helpful, the bus is still stuck in traffic too much of the time. Dedicated bus lanes and bus signal priority would be most helpful. Bus stop consolidation (Torrance 8 and 13 stops can be as little as 700 feet apart), would also speed up buses. 

 -Can you share a time where you were heavily inconvenienced by an event you scheduled and your method of transportation was Torrance Transit (TT)? 

I don't schedule my League of Women Voters of the Beach Cities meetings. But, the Torrance 13 schedule means I am either 20 minutes early or 10 minutes late for the 3pm meetings in Hermosa Beach. There are worse things in life than hanging out for 20 minutes with an ocean view. During the summer when it stays light later, I ride my eBike. Motorists hit so many cyclists at dusk and at night, I feel safer taking transit or driving in the winter. 

My daughter chimed in that she was ghosted by 2 buses this month. She also got on the wrong bus one time and ended up at Torrance Transit Center instead. But those things can be fixed with a taxi or scab cab. She has the RideYellow (yellow cab coop) and Lyft apps on her phone and the charge goes to her parents' credit card. She uses it only in an emergency or when the bus goes awry. 

Not every transit rider can afford a backup cab fare, and that is an issue that needs addressing. Metro sometimes reimburses riders for cab fare, but the amount doesn't cover the full cost of the cab fare. 

-What do you believe TT could do to improve their public transportation throughout the city? 

-Do you have any assumptions as to why TT has declined in quality over the years? 

I have talked to TT staff and know why service has deteriorated. It's partly due to ridership declines and partly due to reduced schedules. Those are chicken and egg problems. In a poorer neighborhood, people would pay the time tax and keep riding transit. In a wealthier area, people respond by purchasing cars and driving instead of riding transit. This has also worsened competition for street parking. Torrance is unique in passing a law that bars the city for charging for parking on city land, including streets and all city-owned lots and garages. 

DMV data shows that the South Bay has a decreasing number of residents with drivers licenses and an increasing number of registered cars. In fact, registered cars outnumber licensed drivers in the South Bay. 

Everyone complaining about difficulty parking is right. But we are the problem and transit (and eBikes/bikes) are the solution. 

Another big problem is elected leaders. Torrance city council and mayor make decisions about TT priorities, and they don't ride transit. 

They purchased a fleet of diesel "trolley buses" that resemble old-style streetcars from a century ago, instead adding to their existing fleet of the normal CNG (compressed natural gas) buses they already have. Not only are diesel buses dirtier, but they also mean that the staff have to maintain 2 different fleets with spare parts for both. 

Metro Los Angeles created a distribution network for CNG sourced from landfills, sewage treatment plants, but mostly dairy farms. Transit agencies throughout the region use Metro's refueling stations. Thus, the CNG buses throughout the region are 100% fossil fuel-free. 

People who don't ride transit are also obsessed with door to door service. So Torrance is investing in "micro-transit", which is incredibly expensive. LA Metro's experience is that it costs about $1-8 to serve a bus rider (depending on how many passengers are on the bus), but it costs over $60 per micro-transit rider.  It is incredibly wasteful and takes money and staff time away from fixed transit and para transit. 

Torrance Transit employees know this, because it is their job to keep up with developments in transit. However, they have to follow the direction of elected leaders who don't know transit and won't believe staff. 

 -Do you think that if enough people rallied together about the inconsistencies of the transit system the company would work harder for a solution? 

I don't think the staff is the problem. They cannot provide better fixed route bus service until we elect better leaders. 

Staffing is another bottleneck. It's hard to recruit new bus drivers as older ones retire. For a new trainee class of 20, they are lucky to have 3 graduates who complete the training and sign on as bus drivers. Finding the 20 trainees is also difficult as many young people cannot pass the mandatory drug test.