Culver City Your Way hosts Transportation Town Hall

Culver City is looking for input from the communities it serves.

The city hosted a Zoom Town Hall Workshop Thursday as part of its Culver City Your Way outreach initiative. The initiative's goal is to solicit feedback from the public, both inside and outside of Culver City, on its Comprehensive Mobility Services Plan, which the city hopes to complete by the end of 2025 or early 2026.

Residents who lived as far away as Silverlake and traveled on Culver CityBus to as far as Cal State Dominguez Hills attended the two-hour Zoom meeting to share their thoughts on what they like about Culver City's bus service and what could be done to improve it. Culver CityBus accommodates around 11,000 riders each day, and the organization knows that Culver City's jurisdictional boundaries do not limit those it serves.

This outreach initiative is part of a broader process to create the City's Comprehensive Mobility Services Plan, which aims to unite the city's many Mobility Plans and initiatives under one umbrella. The CMSP includes the MOVE Culver City Project, the Culver City 2045 General Plan Mobility Element, the Short-Range Mobility Plan, and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Plan.

Many of the service-related questions focused on the different priorities that Culver CityBus should prioritize to make it a more attractive option. The Your Way team, consisting of Culver City's Transportation Department members, planning firm Nelson/Nygard, and communications firm Arellano Associates, considered and presented the drawbacks of each priority to the public.

To solicit feedback from the audience, poll questions were integrated throughout a brief presentation during the first half of the town hall. Attendees were asked what they enjoyed about Culver CityBus and what they felt could be improved.

When asked what aspects of Culver CityBus people liked the most, friendly drivers, cleanliness, and low fares were among the most prevalent answers.

Another goal was to orient priorities based on community feedback. This outreach is being conducted early in the process, and the team says it doesn't have "anything concrete."

Several of these priorities directly contrasted each other, with attendees asked to choose between contrasting goals, such as improving service frequency during peak hours versus increasing the range of service times, or choosing between increasing overall service frequency or widening service coverage.

Most attendees of the Town Hall wanted more from Culver CityBus. Requests for more bus frequency and shorter distances and times between buses were among the most prevalent requests, with 90% of participants listing more frequent service time during peak hours as one of their top three priorities. When asked to prioritize wider service or more service frequency, 74% voted to prioritize frequency.

Infrastructure was also mentioned, with Nelson/Nygaard Project Manager Thomas Wittmann noting that infrastructure has been proven to attract riders to public transit. This point resonated with this point, as 64% answered that they were interested in more investments in mobility infrastructure.

This Town Hall is part of the first phase of outreach opportunities, with several pop-up events and transit intercepts planned throughout the year as part of the Culver City Your Way Initiative. At least two more public meetings are planned as part of the feedback-gathering process.

For more information, visit the Culver City Your Way site here.