Southland Transit · City of La Puente
Redesigned LP Link + Microtransit Cost Proposal
Jason Snow · August 2026 · 3 min read, unless you're distracted
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Card 1 · Start here
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Four cards ask for a decision. Mark each one OK or Flag.
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Card 2 · The deadline
Aug
14
Due to the City
Friday, August 14
Answer by 5:00 p.m. Thursday, August 13
Pacific Time. Not where you are.
Two priced submittals go to Abraham Tellez at the City on Friday: the redesigned LP Link fixed route on a stand-alone basis, and microtransit as a separate optional add-on.
Anything flagged is reworked Thursday. A flag that arrives Friday is too late to change the pricing.
Card 3 · The numbers
$648,070
Combined Year 1 price to the City, excluding fuel
$341,504
LP Link, Year 1
$306,566
Microtransit, Year 1
−$222K
City saves on the Link, a 39% cut
$3.51M
Five-year combined value
The City is billed roughly $699,000 a year today, excluding fuel, for a two-bus Link and a weekday-only Dial-A-Ride. This proposal adds Saturday service, a 7:00 a.m. start, three out-of-city medical destinations, and same-day booking, for about $51,000 less.
Card 4 · Why this one matters
This is our first real microtransit opportunity.
Not a study and not a concept memo: a priced, submittable on-demand product with a technology platform, a call center, volume bands, and a second-van adder already built.
The add-on is conditioned on a concurrent Link award. Management, dispatch, facility and admin are carried once, in the Link price, and are not repeated. That is what makes $306,566 possible. A stand-alone microtransit bid carries roughly $62,000 a year of its own structure.
A competitor bidding microtransit alone bids against our overhead, not against our rate. The City has signaled it may put microtransit to a separate solicitation; this submittal puts our number in front of them first.
Card 5 · Year 1 at a glance
Line
Link
Micro
Fixed monthly fee
$14,787
$11,747
Rate per revenue hour
$53.62
$49.20
Budgeted hours
3,060
3,366
Fuel, estimated
$46,590
$16,841
One-time mobilization
$2,000
$27,208
Price, ex-fuel
$341,504
$306,566
The rate structure mirrors the July 1, 2022 agreement: a fixed monthly fee, an hourly rate, and fuel at actual cost without markup. The City administers the same invoice it administers today. Years 1 through 3 are firm. Years 4 and 5 adjust on Los Angeles area CPI, with a 2.5% floor and a 5% ceiling.
Card 6 · Decision 1 of 4 · Margin
The Link is priced at a 6.71% margin. Microtransit is priced at 4.5% of cost. Both carry 6% corporate overhead recovery. Combined Year 1 margin is roughly $36,000.
The 6.71% reproduces the effective margin of the 2022 agreement on a fuel-excluded basis, which makes it defensible if the City compares.
The uncomfortable part: this contract lost roughly $217,000 across both services in calendar 2024, about $161,000 of it on the Link. A thin margin on a contract that has been underwater is a real decision. The workbook models 5%, 8% and 10% alternatives.
Margin dollar figures are calculated off the workbook rates and are not stated in the submittal.
OK with this
Flag it
Card 7 · Decision 2 of 4 · The hourly rate rises
The Link rate moves from $41.41 to $53.62 per revenue service hour. Every other number in the proposal falls. The City will pick at this line first, so the submittal addresses it directly.
The rate on today's invoice was priced in early 2022, for a service year that ended June 30, 2025, and has been billed unchanged since July 2024. La Puente operators now average about $21 an hour against the $18 that rate was built on.
The like-for-like comparison we put forward is the annual total, not the hourly rate: $341,504 against $564,002.
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Flag it
Card 8 · Decision 3 of 4 · What we disclosed
The submittal states on the record that:
•
No on-time performance data of any kind exists for the LP Link. None ever has.
•
Missed service hours rose from 379 to 952 between FY22/23 and FY24/25, against a 97.5% standard. Road calls rose from 9 to 28.
•
The retained 2020 unit is the most maintenance-intensive vehicle on the property at 260,000 miles, and maintenance is priced on fleet average cost per mile, which runs against us.
•
A single-vehicle route cannot offer a full-time driving position, and part-time operator positions are hard to fill and hold.
Each disclosure is paired with the remedy: recovery built into the cycle, IBSS cameras included, and runs paired with adjacent El Monte work. This reads as command of the operation rather than weakness, particularly against a vendor who will not say any of it. It remains a choice, and it is reversible before submission.
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Card 9 · Decision 4 of 4 · Vehicles excluded
Microtransit is priced with revenue vehicles excluded. The City provides or directs them, on the same basis as it owns the Link fleet. No vehicle capital, physical damage insurance, or registration sits in our rates.
That holds our number down and keeps capital off the balance sheet. It also puts a question back to the City that their parameters never answered: are the vans to be ADA accessible with securement? Roughly 20% of current Dial-A-Ride trips carry a passenger using a wheelchair. If the answer is no, the scope, the productivity and the price all change.
If you want Southland supplying the vans instead, that is a different proposal and it has to be decided now.
OK with this
Flag it
Card 10 · What could move the price
Start date Medium
Priced to January 1, 2027. Each 12 months of movement changes the price by about $9,000 a year. The date is reset against a confirmed date rather than carried as a contingency.
Insurance renewal Medium
About $80,500 a year, the second largest cost in the Link price, stated at the premium actually bound. Los Angeles commercial auto is a hardened market. The fee adjusts in either direction to the premium bound at inception.
Cycle time Medium
Whether the loop holds a 60-minute headway with recovery and legally required break relief inside the cycle cannot be settled from a map. Road test runs in transition days 1 through 15. Above 55 minutes of running time the service requires a schedule hold or a third operator.
Fare revenue estimate Low
Labeled low-confidence in the document deliberately. Fares track boardings, and the effect of a single-direction loop on boardings cannot be predicted. It is a City revenue line and touches neither rate component.
Microtransit demand Low
Cost per trip runs $78 at 3,950 trips down to $36 at 8,400. Legacy Dial-A-Ride billed about $41 a trip. The crossover falls at roughly 7,500 trips. Volume bands let the City buy capacity by exercising a band rather than negotiating mid-year.
Card 11 · Questions, tap to open
Why is the Link fee down only a third when the fleet halves?
Insurance and contract-level costs do not scale with fleet. A project manager, dispatch across every revenue hour, invoicing and reporting exist at any service size. Total operating cost falls 56% while the service falls about 60%, so cost per revenue hour holds nearly flat at $104 to $106 even as the City pays $226,000 a year less.
Are we betting the Link award on microtransit?
No. The Link price is stand-alone and does not change if the City declines microtransit. The conditioning runs the other direction: the microtransit price is valid only alongside a concurrent Link award.
What if they take only the Link?
Southland keeps the incumbency at $341,504 in Year 1 and $1.85M over five years, at a real margin rather than the held-over 2022 rates in force since the term lapsed. That is the base case.
How do we look against the regional benchmark?
A nearby San Gabriel Valley city awarded unified microtransit in 2025 at $72 to $98 per vehicle revenue hour. This Link works out to about $110 all-in. Unit rates fall with scale, and a single-vehicle service carries an entire contract on 3,060 hours. The comparison that holds is the annual total.
Anything unresolved on the current contract?
Yes, and the submittal raises it. The executed agreement carries rates for Years 1 through 3 only. The City is in year four being billed Year 3 rates, with no amendment or option exercise in our file. The record should be squared before a new schedule begins. The submittal also recommends restoring the predecessor agreement's definition of a revenue service hour, because the current agreement contains none.
What did we commit to deliver, and when?
Work-order-level maintenance history on both retained units, and a written anticipated-maintenance assessment prepared by the maintenance manager against a physical inspection, both within five business days of submittal. Submitting Friday, August 14 makes that package due Friday, August 21.
Timeline to service start?
City review through late August, negotiation in September, Council in October, notice to proceed by end of October, then a 60-day transition. Service commences January 1, 2027. If the City moves faster, the date and the price move with it.
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