Long Beach Transit officials have offered to bring back the bus line that runs into Seal Beach, with one stipulation: Seal Beach must pay for the service itself.
LBT announced it would pull two bus lines between Long Beach and Seal Beach starting Aug. 26, due to claims that Seal Beach residents made racially insensitive comments towards Long Beach bus riders at a community meeting in May.
Since June, officials have discussed the possibility of restoring the service next February.
Approximately 250 Seal Beach residents use the two bus routes that connect Long Beach and Seal Beach every day, according to LBT spokesperson Kevin Lee.
LBT formally offered to restore Route 171 on July 9. The bus line would cost $123,462 annually, according to a letter from LBT to Seal Beach City Manager Jill Ingram.
“Since we had to reroute 131, we had to reallocate funds [from 171] into the 131,” Lee said. “Now there isn’t money or resources to put back into 171. The only way they can get it back is if they pay for it.”
LBT, a nonprofit organization, does not receive subsidy money to operate in Orange County, according to Lee.
Normally, when LBT operates in a city other than Long Beach, the service is paid for by Prop A funds, or local sales taxes designated towards public transportation. Because Seal Beach does not have a Prop A measure in place, they would have to find another way to fund the service.
There is no formal deadline for Seal Beach officials to accept LBT’s proposal, but the sooner the better, Lee said.
“It takes months and months of work to reallocate funds and resources into a different service, so if they didn’t tell us until December we wouldn’t be able to get the service back up by February,” Lee said.
Prior to the cancellation, only one bus line, route 171, connected Seal Beach to Cal State Long Beach.
“It’s not going to be that drastic a change for us,” Elissa Thomas, sustainable transportation coordinator for CSULB, said.
However, many CSULB students residing in Seal Beach will miss the convenience of a bus line that comes into their city.
Josh Baynor, a junior business major, said he doesn’t think it’s fair to withhold the service from an entire city because of the actions of only a few people.
“Not everybody drives, and even those who do, I’m sure not everyone wants to pay for a parking pass and have to find parking on campus every day,” Baynor said.
Route 171 will no longer stop at Main Street and Electric Avenue in Seal Beach. Instead, it will stop at Studebaker and Pacific Coast Highway, the closest it will come to Seal Beach. The old stop and the new stop are less than a mile apart, approximately a 16-minute walk, according to Google Maps.
Students coming from Seal Beach will also have the option to walk or bike part of the way to campus and catch Passport D, which will soon become 121, on the corner of Second Street and Pacific Coast Highway to complete their trip.
All red Passport buses will be replaced by compressed natural gas buses this fall, but the bus lines will remain the same, according to Thomas.
Long Beach Transit and Orange County Transportation Authority are also working to coordinate meeting times for riders between the two cities, according to Lee.
“At the end of the day, some people need to ride the bus,” Baynor said. “Seal Beach is really not even further from campus than some other parts of Long Beach, so I hope they bring [a bus line] back [to Seal Beach].”
Despite tension between LBT and Seal Beach officials following the town meeting last spring, Lee insisted the relationship is on much better terms now.
“It’s been really good,” Lee said. “It seemed tough at first but we’re all looking to go forward and we’re all hoping we can get something resolved.”