“We looked at our ridership and decided we could make some improvements that could serve passengers better,” said SamTrans public information officer Christine Dunn.
That self-examination process began with a survey by the Peninsula Congestion Relief Alliance, working in tandem with SamTrans, she said.
 SamTrans Operations Manager for Route 17 Santos Orellana informs students at a new bus stop that the bus is full and they must wait fifteen minutes for another bus. |
They also included expanding the route to take in Montara, adding Sunday service, stretching service hours to 9 p.m. and adding extra “cutaway” buses to cover portions of the regular rounds at peak hours.
The changes were funded though a Lifeline Transportation Alliance grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which worked along with the Coastside Transportation Committee, Coastside Hope, the city of Half Moon Bay, Cabrillo Unified School District, San Mateo County and the City/County Association of Governments, Dunn said.
The grant runs through fall 2009.
Other changes since then include tweaking weekday morning schedules earlier to meet the needs of students. Legally, SamTrans cannot serve schools solely and directly, Dunn said, but buses can transport students along the routes.
“SamTrans is constantly looking for ways to improve its services on the coast,” said Zoe Kersteen-Tucker, Coastside representative on the SamTrans board of directors. The changes to Route 17, she added, “will improve both safety and efficiency of this route, and benefit our kids too. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Another change was the addition of the extra Main Street/Lewis Foster Drive stop so “people going to the school, students and teachers, don’t have to cross Highway 1.”
The buses were full to overflowing at times during the first week of school. A SamTrans service supervisor monitored the flow of passenger traffic at the new stop, directing students to wait for the next bus and “reporting that the buses were full,” said Dunn. “He will be there until he feels it’s not necessary to be there.”
Students were allowed to stand on the crowded buses, holding on to grab bars mounted on the seats.
Changes also came to Route 294, which follows a loop from Linda Mar in Pacifica south through Montara, El Granada and Half Moon Bay before curving east to San Mateo and back. It now allows northbound and southbound service on the small section of Main Street between highways 1 and 92, letting riders use the Main Street/Lewis Foster Drive stop too.
Maps at www.samtrans.com do not yet reflect the most recent changes. “They were implemented so quickly there was not time to update the maps,” said Dunn.
The numbers reflect success in the routes. Ridership on Route 17 in fiscal 2007 to fiscal 2008 swelled 65 percent from 53,258 to 87,903. The average weekly ridership leaped from 2,227 in 2007 up to 3,522 in 2008.
The change is even more impressive when considering the change from the week before school’s start to the first week of classes. On Monday, Aug. 18, there were 196 riders, of which 73 paid youth fares. A week later — the first day of school — there were 360 riders, 235 youth. Ridership went up 54 percent in a week.
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