To address a mounting structural deficit, SamTrans is conducting a comprehensive operational analysis hoping to boost productivity and reduce costs. SamTrans calls the process the "SamTrans Service Plan." The agency is planning public meetings throughout the county in the next few months and plans to wrap up the process next year.
SamTrans's process is particularly overdue because its financial problem has threatened Caltrain service earlier this year. This process is being conduct in parallel to MTC's Transit Sustainability Project, which is a region-wide effort to address the transit funding shortfall.
Unlike most transit agencies in the Bay Area, the transit corridor in San Mateo County centers around Mission Street/El Camino Real, which is also served by BART and Caltrain nearby. The county also has areas of low income, high transit demand communities like East Palo Alto as well as extremely wealthy, low transit demand cities like Hillsborough and Atherton. San Mateo County also have strong intercounty commute particularly to and from San Francisco.
Besides the large number of cities, the county also has many city and employer sponsored shuttles, with some of the service created to fill the gaps left by SamTrans (e.g. Foster City). One of the reasons SamTrans was established was to unify the transit operations that were operated by the cities. Because of service reductions by SamTrans, many cities used their own funding to operate shuttles. While shuttles are valuable to cover the service gap, the transit system is no longer unified.
A problem SamTrans has is poor schedule planning, which resulted in duplicative service. This is especially apparent between routes 390 and KX between San Mateo and Palo Alto. There are many weekday and weekend trips that these two lines depart and arrive at the same time. When that happens, there's wasted capacity and that riders who can't make the schedule have to wait 30 minutes or more for the next bus. If the trips are staggered (like VTA lines 22 and 23), then the effective frequency would be every 15 minutes, a big difference especially for riders trying to connect with VTA in Palo Alto.
Let's see whether this effort will help SamTrans address those planning issues, which if done correctly it could have an immediate improvement in service and increase in ridership.
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4 comments:
"The SSP focuses on SamTrans fixed-route bus service, and does not include analysis of Caltrain"
That is unfortunate, because better integration with Caltrain (in terms of schedule and fares) can make Caltrain the backbone of the SamTrans system. I imagine that it might well be cheaper for SamTrans to subsidize riders taking trains that are already there, rather than running a separate bus service. And schedule integration makes it easy for riders to take Caltrain across the county and transfer for a bus for the last mile, thus solving the problems of both agencies (last mile access for Caltrain, low speed for SamTrans).
How much does the SamTrans CEO take home?? Apparently more than anyone thought ($500K including committee and multi-agency work). Boards declined his offer of cuts after the "scandals" in So. CA. Maybe some of that "waste" could be put to good use??
Maybe the CEO of SamTrans could ask the CEO of Caltrain to arrange some kind of collaboration in terms of fares and schedules. Can't be that hard for him to just talk to himself. After all, isn't that part of why he's paid to do both?
Ridership could be increased by running kx line differently from 9 am to 6pm, that would involve speeding up and shortening the distance, by running it on the freeway from to sf to sequoia station. It would of course go through the airport but stay on the freeway until whipple in RC.,only stopping at third avenue,SM,and off Hillsdale blvd., and then on to whipple and El Camino with 2 or 3 stops on the way to Sequoia Station. This would free up resources to create a new 292L line that would run as a limited during that time. This new more prompt,convenient line should create more ridership,as it would cut destination time by 20 minutes or more. It should ride on the El Camino from Caltrain Millbrae to Caltrain Palo Alto,after covering the Airport and using the same route until sfo as the 292 local.
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