County Funds Rides From Hospital to Shops

It’s a short walk from Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center to a nearby shopping center, but Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday, feeling that it is too far for shoppers to travel on foot, voted to spend $80,000 to give them a lift.

The money will go to the Watts Labor Community Action Committee to operate a free shuttle van to run the half-mile between the hospital and the neighboring Kenneth Hahn Plaza in Willowbrook.

“People don’t walk anywhere,” explained T. A. Tidemanson, county public works director.

A spokesman for Supervisor Hahn, who proposed the shuttle that will operate in his district, said it will “make it convenient for people at the hospital to take advantage of the restaurants and stores at the shopping center and improve the business of the shopping center.”

Schedule Given

The nonprofit Watts Labor Community Action Committee also owns an interest in the shopping center. But Ted Watkins, the organization’s administrator, noted, “Whatever we make goes back into the community.”

Hahn aide Burke Roche said that hospital workers do not have time during their 30-minute lunch break to walk to and from the shopping center for a bite to eat.

The round-trip is almost a mile from the far end of the hospital, Roche said. The shuttle, which will run from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, will complete a loop around the hospital property and the shopping center every 14 minutes.

“Some people don’t like to walk,” Roche said. “Some people can’t walk very well. That van is for those people who don’t have the time, the inclination or ability to walk.”

Roche added that the shuttle, by bringing in additional business, will help ensure the existence of the shopping center, a cornerstone of the county’s redevelopment of Willowbrook.

The action was approved unanimously and without discussion.

Nearly $17 million for transportation projects was allocated to each of the five supervisors this year based on the population of the unincorporated areas in their districts. Supervisors rarely question their colleagues’ use of funds as long as they get their share.

Funds for the shuttle will come from a half-cent sales tax increase approved by voters in Los Angeles County in 1980. A spokeswoman for the county Transportation Commission, which administers the transit funds, said that projects are judged only on whether they are available to the public and whether they compete with existing public and private transit. The commission still must approve the expenditure.

The spokeswoman added that the route covered by the shuttle will be among the shortest in the county. The $80,000 will fund the shuttle until September, after which it will be evaluated.

The supervisors also awarded the Watts Labor Community Action Committee $49,000 to add another bus to a separate shuttle that runs throughout the Willowbrook area.