Tag Archives: Subway

Metro’s Orange Line Metroliner bus approaching the Reseda station.
Photo by Randy Stern

Around May of 1975, everyone in the San Fernando Valley was sent a mailer from the Southern California Rapid Transit District announcing a marked improvement on bus service in our area. As the Valley’s population grew, the demand for transit services had to be put into place. The GRID system of bus lines was established to cross-cross every part of the Valley from Burbank to Chatsworth connecting commuters, students and shoppers to wherever they need to go.

I was one of the first GRID system riders. My mother looked at both my brother and I and sent us on the bus. We were fortunate to live near an intersection of two bus lines. The 35 bus ran down Reseda Boulevard from Northridge to Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana. Then, it would turn onto Ventura along the fashionable boulevard until it caught up with the Ventura Freeway to ride over Cauhenga Pass.

However, it was the Victory Boulevard line, the 164 bus, which received the lion’s share of my patronage. Before my Bar Mitzvah, I would attend Hebrew School at the temple a mile from the end of the line on Valley Circle Boulevard. This was the main purpose why my mother sent me on the bus in the first place. The 164 was not a remarkable line, but it did prepare for a lot of transit journeys over the next three decades.

Over the past thirty years, the bus lines that ran throughout the Valley went through a rollercoaster of changes. After years of service cuts, bus service in the Valley proved to be a success. Route modifications were augmented by changes in population and commute patterns. Instead of a system designed to get commuters to downtown Los Angeles, the Valley became a commute center itself. Continue reading →