LA County is huge, more populous than most states. In addition to the huge LACMTA transit system, there are a few dozen other public entities operating fixed-route transit services within the county. Each one is unique, and I would like to document their quirks and features online! I'm making videos about my adventures over on Regular Train Reviews, but having all the write ups in one place seems like a good idea.
Metro's fleet is huge and pretty well standardized. the seats aren't the most comfortable, but they get the job done and are easy to clean. As for navigating the metro system, metro is usually pretty good about connecting its GTFS feeds to navigation apps so you can see real time info on how delayed your bus is. Metro has unparalleled route coverage - a 3.50 day pass can get you anywhere on this massive network - and it integrates pretty well with navigation apps. the official Moovit navigation app is a bit clunky and i think the metro.net website relies on it a bit too much to be really helpful on mobile. frequency of service varies route to route but i think all the local routes need some improvement on that front.
GTrans is the transit agency of the City of Gardena, with five routes across the south bay region. Line 5 goes from Willowbrook Rosa Parks to the LAX Green Line station, mostly along El Segundo Boulevard. It only runs hourly, so I had to wait a while, but when it finally arrived I was impressed. This ENC Axess 40 foot bus, built just a couple years ago, has a shiny exterior, reasonably padded seats, and makes good use of its onboard LCD screen, supplementing the overhead dot matrix and audio ennunciator with real time route info. Most of this route runs east-west on El Segundo boulevard, and looking south you get these lovely glimpses of the palos verdes hills in the distance. GTrans has a comfortable, modern fleet with legible schedules and a well-designed website. the routes provide good connections, but the hourly headways really cut into their usefulness. overall though GTrans was a lot better than i expected!
beach cities transit 102 was a pretty good service all considered. the community psa's posted onboard had a feeling of small town charm to them, and the sunset view out the front window was absolutely beautiful. its schedule, which has since been adjusted to stop at the transit center, is a little confusing though. it's different between mondays and other weekdays, it has extra peak hours trips during the school year, it has some afternoon express services, honestly i'm more confused after reading the schedule.
This has been my local transit provider for years, and I'm all too familiar with its east-west routes. More recently, I've been riding the 7 bus to El Monte, which is unique in a couple ways. It's one of only three or four bus routes that serve uptown whittier, and it's the only Norwalk transit route so far that uses electric buses! I really enjoy the Gillig electric buses they use, except that they have those annoying little dots covering the windows. Norwalks CNG gilligs are a bit rattly, and the electrics are a welcome improvement on that front. More recently I've seen some hybrid buses on the 4 route, and I'd love to ride them sometime! The routes provide good coverage, but all the schedules are way too infrequent. Hourly and 50 minute headways are much too common.
the el monte trolley is a system of five looping local routes that run slightly better than hourly. they have this weird pulse-like scheduling where they all arrive at the trolley depot next to the metrolink station, one by one, and then all leave in the same order. the fares are 50 cents per ride, cash only, exact change only. Despite the name, its equipment is not powered by trolley wires, but CNG. these are standard ENC "E-Z Rider II" 32 foot low floor buses. except that for what i can only imagine are insurance and liability reasons, they have seatbelts.
The routes are weird and looping but do provide decent coverage between the city center and a bunch of residential areas. Unfortunately they all run on roughly 50 minute headways, which really limits their usefulness. It's great that they have a single hub where you can transfer between any of the routes, and it's great that that hub is next to the metrolink station, but it's not very accessible from the silver line station, which is where most other buses go. And the hub itself is pretty spartan. it has shade and benches but that's about it. no route maps, no PA systems, no information about other transit services. The cash-only payment is a hassle too, other small agencies have implemented TAP readers just fine, the trolley really just feels behind the times on this front. There are no auditory upcoming stop announcements onboard - they aren't doing their navigability any favors. The pulsed central transfer service pattern is helpful and it's the sort of thing that would be a great use of resources in a small rural town, but el monte is definitely not that, and it deserves so much better.
This one has a lot going for it, its routes reach all over the san gabriel valley, and i've heard great things about the Silver Streak express service! My one issue with its coverage is that the routes are a bit too hub-and-spoke for a system of this size. ideally they would move to more of a grid type of map eventually, but that would have to come with frequencey improvements, because if you have to wait half an hour or more for your next bus it's better to be in an air conditioned mall than on some suburban street corner. But on the plus side again, Foothill's website is really good. it makes routes and schedules super clear and easy to find, and the bold text on the stop signs also goes a long way to system navigability! and the buses look great, they've got an iconic exterior with the glossy paint and honda insight esque rear wheel covers. trip times are longer than they maybe should be, because of those weird route deviations, but the interiors are super comfortable, i was really impressed.
I had no idea this system existed until I saw a bus stop sign from a passing Foothill bus, and I immediately disembarked and rode a couple stops to try it out! Its routes are a little weird, they're two overlapping one-way loops a few blocks apart; but they both have easy transfers to foothill and metrolink! frequency is actually pretty ok? it's hard to tell, though, because they haven't updated their website since 2015, and it took forever to load on my phone! The service seems pretty well used though and they have tap readers, which means they're better than el monte trolley.
i hate to pick on a small system, but even compared to other small municipal systems, sunshine shuttle is pretty bad. it only has three lines, but as far as i can tell there's no one place you can catch all three of them. routes A and B run hourly, and route C runs half hourly BUT it doesn't start running until 10 AM. The routes are very twisty and hard to remember, and I hate to just dunk on an underdog like this but sunshine shuttle is just not very usable. I think one factor here is that whittier doesn't have any regional transit to speak of. there's metro local 120 through south whittier, and montebello routes 10 and 50 connecting Uptown to East LA, but that's about it. no metrolink, no light rail, no express buses, and probably will be that way for a while - the eastside Gold Line extension is still a long way off.
Montebello bus lines is a decently big system, about the size of Norwalk's, but unlike Norwalk several of their routes run every ten minutes on weekdays! unfortunately, the 50 is not one of those routes. But it seems like a much more reliable service than any of the adjacent municipal agencies.