Big Blue Bus – Route 1

The big blue bus used to be the best bus service I’d used in 10 states, these days it rivals the very worst. Please fire the new management.

Still not fixed… This on time problem. And it isn’t like it was rush hour?! More drivers… Maybe outfit the busses with Gps so that the rest of us hapless morons don’t have to spend endless wait times at the stop.

Every morning at 5:55 driver is usually on time on the LA side but on the Santa Monica side. Oh…that’s a whole different story, drivers are rude and stop in random spots on the street, they dont care about old or hsndicaped people…

The driver blew me off at the first day. Thx for providing amazing customer service. Will never use it again.

How about this bus is never on time in the mornings, particularly when I go wait for it. I always see 2 buses pass my stop and then there’s no bus for the next 20 min or so. I frequently run to the stop just to make it because i know the next one will take forever and the bus drivers pull away as I’m at the door, every time. Granted, usually the bus is on time and the drivers are super nice. But I get pissed off when there are two buses in a row, what happened to spacing out your buses?
I guess this is what you have to put up with since it is LA but I need to get a car.
Overall the buses are clean, cool and safe. There are some crazies that take it but you just don’t deal with them. It’s not as bad as the metro, those take forever to come (my boyfriend always ends up waiting like an hour to an hour and a half if he misses one bus!) so although I bitch about this bus, it is pretty reliable.
Something that sucks is that they stop running at midnight. If you are in Santa Monica, the metro 4 goes all night and goes the same route on santa monica as the 1 except it goes downtown and not towards ucla.
There are some really nice drivers, which is great! others tho are bitchy sometimes and make problems when they should just let the person on, one person isn’t going to make a difference when you shuttle thousands of people around.
If you get the Bruin Go! flash pass, it is 33 $ for the entire quarter and you ride «free,» by showing your pass and swiping your bruin card. Otherwise fare is 1 $ for the general public and 50 cents with UCLA ID.

Is it possible to love public transportation in LA? Yep, it is!
Clean, air conditioned and actually NICE busses, Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus system is pretty stellar. For $ 1 (exact change), you’re all set.
Line 1 stretches from UCLA, down Santa Monica Blvd., through Santa Monica and into Venice. How much more convenient could you get?

BBB 1, what can I say to you? When I need to commute to UCLA or Santa Monica, I’m so thankful you exist. (Currently $ 33/​qtr for students, faculty, and staff at UCLA and free for all SMC students). That said, when I need to commute fast, you know how to space out your busses so they arrive longer and two at a time. I’ve been told it helps them in traffic but I don’t see much use to it. They’re not leap-​frogging each other or anything.
The bus drivers are generally courteous and I haven’t had any shady experiences, although LA is not without its homeless population. They’re also rolling out new busses (or at least they’re changing the seats to a nice pleather that should be easier to clean). But really the bus has never stricken me as dirty — always free of trash and any other rubbish.
So after hopping on public transit in a few other cities, I know that you guys can be more reliable (See: San Fran/​New York). But when all is said and done, I saved some money, trees, and sometimes time by taking the BBB so 4-​stars!