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By Mike Gervais
Register Staff
1-1-2008 Southern California, here we come.
Eastern Sierra Transit has expanded its service district and, beginning tomorrow, will be offering residents rides from Bishop to Lancaster.
Lone Pine residents who have business in the Reno, Nev. area also have a more convenient schedule that will allow for a one-day round-trip.
Coordination with neighboring transit agencies and the assistance of federal funds has made the expanded CREST route possible, said ESTA Transit Analyst Jill Batchelder.
The CREST Route South, which has traditionally taken passengers as far as Ridgecrest, has a new schedule that includes stops in the Lancaster area and will continue to operate on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
“The service area will extend from Mammoth Lakes to Lancaster. The stop in Lancaster will be at the Greyhound/Metrolink Station, where passengers will have direct connections into the Los Angeles area,” said Batchelder.
The CREST Route South will leave Bishop at 9:15 a.m. and return at 6:10 p.m. It will leave Lone Pine at 10:25 a.m. and return at 5 p.m. Stops also include Big Pine, Independence Pearsonville and Coso Junction.
The ESTA chose to send the CREST Route into Lancaster to provide Inyo County residents an opportunity to catch a train or bus from there to the Los Angeles area.
In order to offer the ride to Lancaster, the transit authority had to eliminate its stop in Ridgecrest, but was able to arrange for a transfer in Inyokern.
Passengers wishing to go into Ridgecrest will be able to transfer from CREST to Ridgecrest Area Transit (RAT) in Inyokern at 11:35 a.m. While in Ridgecrest passengers will have approximately three-and-a-half hours to conduct business, attend medical appointments or shop before returning for the ride back to Inyo at 3:40 p.m.
“What we’ve done is reduce our fair to Ridgecrest by $2.50, because the RAT bus costs $2.50,” Batchelder said, adding that residents riding to Ridgecrest can do so at the same price, despite the transfer.
The new schedule to accommodate the stop in Lancaster also makes some changes to the CREST Route North, which takes riders to the Reno area.
The route north to Reno will continue to operate on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and will connect with the Lone Pine to Bishop Route, making travel possible between Lone Pine and Reno in just one day. Additionally, there will be stops at both the Reno/Tahoe International Airport and the Reno Greyhound Station.
The CREST North Route will leave Lone Pine at 6:15 a.m., 15 minutes earlier than the current schedule, “so riders can go full circle in one day,” Batchelder said.
The bus will return to Bishop at 6:30 p.m. and Lone Pine at 7:40 p.m.
The ESTA is able to offer the expanded routes to Lancaster and Reno thanks to a Federal Transportation Administration inner-city interregional transit grant.
“This is a competitive grant, it’s the one the CREST route has been operating on since its inception,” Batchelder said.
In previous years, the grant had a ceiling of $200,000, which the ESTA used to finance the CREST Line, but this year the feds upped the ante, allowing ESTA to apply for an additional $53,870.
That extra money allows the transit authority to operate these new stops at almost no additional cost to riders.
“You will pay a little more, because you’re riding a little farther in distance,” Batchelder said, but the cost is minimal.
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