the orange line

(Image from www.streetcarmike.com)

Its way too slow' that's what SHE said! I was talking to an east coast native who now lives in LA. She, like most LA residents, drives everywhere, but because she lives in the valley, she thought- why not give the orange line a try.
'It stops at every traffic light. I dont get it.' she said.
being from the east coast naturally she would think this is absurd.
The orange line has dedicated lanes. It uses a former rail corridor, and it is promoted as similar to a light rail system, but this thing is not even 'rail lite'. instead it's a bad joke played on the residents of the valley.

What is extraordinary about the horrible condition of LA transportation is how easy it would be to fix, but the sloppy job they did on the orange line shows the deep resistance to any serious rethinking of auto-LA.
If the orange line is really supposed to be an alternative to the 101
it has to average more than 15 mph.

To fix the Orange Line only two things:

First, ban turns into the bus corridor. This is not hard to figure out. When I was last in Boston, I noticed they did this for the "T" whenever it ran at grade level.
At every intersection the stoplights go through multiple cycles for every turn. This means long waits not just for the bus but also for cars at the intersection.
Wouldn't this confuse drivers that are used to turning at these intersections? Yes, initially they would get frustrated at not
being able to turn, but they would learn to turn earlier or later.

Second, create gates at the intersection. This is again so obvious and
simple. The blue line is treated very differently, why is that?
Look, the idea here is to encourage people to get out of their cars, so every time people on the bus can look down and laugh at people having to wait in their cars as the bus speeds by, they will get a psychological boost.

There is not enough attention paid to this psychological aspect of transportation, but it was perfectly expressed in the movie Crash when the character played by Ludacris notes the reason for big windows on the side of buses: " to humiliate the people of colour who are reduced to riding on them."