THE GRAY BUSES that roll along Los Angeles’ Orange Line don’t look like other buses: They’re 60 feet long, and their streamlined design means they don’t just stop. With some pomp, they arrive. They dock. And today, on a drizzly Sunday, nearly every seat on the Orange Line is taken. The route connects the northwest corner of the San Fernando Valley to a Metro Rail station in North Hollywood, 18 miles and about an hour away. It’s perhaps the country’s best example of “bus rapid transit,” a grade of service that’s supposed to combine the best features of a trolley line with the relative cheapness of a bus.
