High praise for new SamTrans express bus service

Dubbed FCX, the Wi-Fi-equipped bus line has transported an average of 400 to 450 commuters a day since it debuted Aug. 19, which already nearly meets the agency’s goal of about 500 average daily riders during the first year of service. The expectation is to ultimately reach 1,000 daily riders, but the bus line will have to gain more traction among San Francisco residents to reach that goal, officials said. 

A recent SamTrans survey reaching 139 people found that more than one-third of FCX riders drove alone prior to taking that bus line. Of those riders, 7% drove alone for their entire commute while 28% drove alone to BART or Caltrain stops. 

“The folks who are getting out of their cars and getting on this bus and getting off [Highway] 101 — that’s just amazing,” Stone said. “To talk to people on the first day the route ran who had not taken SamTrans before at all, never in their lives, but hear about this service and that got them on the bus was pretty much the high of the year for me so far.” 

Almost one-half of the FCX survey respondents are new SamTrans riders.

Chief Operating Officer David Olmeda said FCX ridership has been so successful that SamTrans has had to roll out bigger buses to meet demand. 

“It has been quite rewarding to see how many people have flocked to this service. We’re very optimistic to see this grow to the point that we needed to scramble to replace the buses and we were able to do that,” he said. 

Sixty-foot articulated buses with 48 seats now complement SamTrans’ standard 40-foot coaches, which seat 38, during the busiest times.

Every weekday between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., five FCX buses travel from Foster City to downtown San Francisco and make return trips between 3:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. Buses run every 30 minutes and a similar schedule brings commuters from San Francisco to jobs in Foster City. 

Foster City Mayor Sam Hindi said residents have been hungry for a transit option like the FCX.

“We’re not on the transit corridor in Foster City so residents were really hungry for a public transit way of getting to the city in an efficient manner and the FCX does just that,” he said.

The FCX currently costs $2.25 to go north and $4 to go south, but starting January, the fare will jump to $4.50 each direction or $4 with Clipper. FCX was free for its first two weeks of service and SamTrans has not nor does it expect to see any noticeable impact to ridership now that the promotion is over. Just one respondent in the aforementioned survey said they would stop riding the FCX after the promotion ends. 

Survey respondents were overwhelmingly pleased with the location of stops, seat availability and schedule reliability, and a lesser 58% of respondents were satisfied with how often the bus runs while 65% were satisfied with onboard Wi-Fi. Officials are confident that last number would now be higher as Wi-Fi was not working on a handful of buses initially, but is now functional on all of them.

End-to-end travel times have also been as predicted thus far — between 69 minutes and 79 minutes — which satisfied 86% of survey respondents. Moving forward, Stone expects improvements in that department as well.

“I imagine once those [express] lanes are built out and these buses can go even faster on the freeway and not be subject to the whims of traffic congestion I hope the service is only going to get more popular,” Stone said. Express lanes are currently being built on Highway 101 in San Mateo County and once they’re up and running in 2022, buses will be able to travel on them at speeds of at least 45 mph even during commute times. 

The FCX is just one of six express bus lines that will be rolled out in the coming years. 

zachary@smdailyjournal.com

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