Two Long Beach Transit bus routes will resume service to Old Town in June, according to Seal Beach City Manager Jill Ingram. She announced the news Monday night, March 24, at the Seal Beach City Council meeting.
The announcement set off a round of applause from the audience. The news was the result of an agreement negotiated by Long Beach Transit and Seal Beach city staff.
Ingram said the city had been working with Long Beach Transit to restore bus routes 131 and 171, both of which used to connect Old Town Seal Beach to Long Beach.
The transit agency stopped both bus routes in August 2012.
Ingram said the next bus route change would be in June. She said there was still some minor administrative work to be done by both Seal Beach and Long Beach Transit staff.
Both routes will stop at Main Street and Electric Avenue.
Seal Beach Administrative Manager Patrick Gallegos said it would cost Seal Beach $10,000 a year to restore the two bus routes.
In 2012, Long Beach Transit officials had asked Seal Beach for $123,000 to restore the routes.
Originally, the bus routes came into Seal Beach without the city paying for the service.
Mayor Ellery Deaton said that the new bus route 171 looked the same route it had run before.
Gallegos said yes.
Councilman Gary Miller said the city manager and staff worked hard on the project last year.
Deaton thanked Long Beach Transit for restoring the routes.
During the public comment segment of the meeting, five Seal Beach residents asked the council to support the restoration of the bus routes.
However, Deaton pointed out that this was not a voting issue.
Victor Grgas said his late wife Nancy Grgas worked to get the bus routes back. He said she would have been pleased.
Resident Paul Cabral, who was helped to the podium, said he was glad the bus route was being restored.
Corinne Monroe, who is in her 90s, volunteers at the administrative offices of the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. Bus route 171 would take her from Seal Beach to the Catalina Landing, where the aquarium offices are located.
She described three alternative routes she could take in place of the bus route. One alternate bus route would take her as much as an hour and 45 minutes. Another alternative was an $8 or $10 cab ride.
She asked the council to show the same compassion for bus passengers that they had shown to owners of beach benches and to the owners of a pig.
Deaton asked the public to stay after public comment was over so Ingram could explain what the council was going to do about the issues they had raised.
Subhead: History of a controversy
In May 2012, Long Beach Transit announced that there would be changes to the 131 and 171 bus routes to accommodate new buses.
Long Beach Transit had been required to replace its 30-foot red diesel fueled shuttle buses on the Passport routes with 40-foot CNG buses.
This required a change bus route 131 through a residential neighborhood. Some residents disapproved of the plan. The matter was discussed at a meeting on Marina Drive that no one recorded.
What happened at the May 8, 2012, meeting has been debated.
On May 10, Larry Jackson, who was the president and CEO of Long Beach Transit at the time, sent a letter to Ingram that said: “Although it is best if I don’t go into the details of specific comments, Seal Beach City staff present can give you a sense of the ‘colorful’ comments from residents and the Seal Beach Council member.
“A prolonged dialogue putting one group of Seal Beach residents against transit users would not serve any useful purpose, but merely inflame deep-seated ugly feelings that were expressed during the meeting.”
Transit officials said that some Seal Beach residents living in the Marina Drive area made unspecified “racist” remarks about Long Beach.
Residents who attended the meeting denied any racist remarks were made.
As a result of these alleged remarks, Jackson decided to discontinue both bus routes.
Jackson said it was not in Long Beach Transit’s best interests to continue service to Seal Beach. He said Long Beach would cancel both routes 131 and 171, which goes on PCH, Main Street and Electric Avenue.
Later, Long Beach Transit board members publicly accused Seal Beach of being a racist community even as Ingram and Seal Beach council members lobbied to restore the bus routes.
Seal Beach officials offered multiple apologies, which did nothing to stop the cancellation of the bus routes. News reports at the time quoted Kevin Lee, marketing manager for Long Beach Transit, as saying the routes were cancelled because LBT was denied access.
A July 9, 2012, letter from LBT asked for $123,462. The transit agency also offered to start a Dial-a-Lift service to Long Beach effective at $25 for each one-way trip.
At the time, Ingram said it was hard to swallow the idea that Seal Beach now had to pay for a service that had been free for years.
