The county’s numerous shuttle programs are undergoing further evaluation, given operating costs have doubled in the last six years and ridership frequency has also dropped.
The San Mateo County Transportation Authority helps fund about 26 shuttle programs throughout the area, with local jurisdictions providing various levels of matching funds for their respective programs. The public shuttles are largely meant to connect residents to major transit stops, like BART and Caltrain, particularly in areas that don’t have frequent bus or other transit service. But the cost to operate the program has ballooned.
“Pre-pandemic, we were under $10 per passenger. During the pandemic we spiked a lot. … We’ve stabilized a bit post-pandemic, but we are still about twice as expensive per passenger as we were pre-pandemic,” Sue Ellen Atkinson, Planning and Fund Management manager, said.
Ridership has also declined, further exacerbating the effects of higher operating costs. Like many transit operations, the shuttles still haven’t fully recovered since COVID-19. In 2019, about 67% of survey participants said they took the shuttle five days a week, which is now 11%. About 40% take it twice a week compared to 3% in 2019.
“Even as we have riders returning, there is just less demand from them to ride as frequently as they were before the pandemic,” Market Research Manager Julian Jest said.
For the next funding cycle, which lasts for two fiscal years, TA staff announced it has been able to provide $16 million for shuttle program funding, much higher than the historical $4 million to $5 million contribution.
“Seeing the trend of programs getting more expensive, we tried to pull together as much funding as we could this year,” Atkinson said, however, she added the high amount of rollover funds would not be the norm for future cycles.
The total cost to operate all of the anticipated shuttles will be about $20 million, including the cities’ matching funds. TA staff also plans to start a shuttle program study to evaluate the financial and operational sustainability of the shuttles, especially given some routes average only one to two riders per hour.
“I don’t know how we can sustain that as a free service,” Jackie Speier, TA board member and San Mateo County supervisor, said.
Many riders take the shuttles to and from major transit stops, including Caltrain and BART. But the time it often takes the shuttles to get to and from those stops dissuades many prospective riders, Mark Nagales, TA board member and South San Francisco councilmember, said.
“One of the complaints that I hear is that … what usually makes a 10-minute drive takes about a 45-minute to an hour drive,” he said. “If there is a way to shorten that we could potentially save money on the routes.”
Assuming board approval in June, the evaluation would begin in July.
(1) comment
Why isn't SamTrans focusing on its core responsibility of providing local bus service?
Instead their Express routes are are competing with Caltrain.
And their Shuttle Service are trying to compete with taxis, ridehailing, ridesharing, robotaxis, ...
But what we see as a result is that Caltrain and Waymo are providing better (and cheaper) service for the public and SamTrans is neglecting its responsibility of being a local public transit agency for school routes or connector to Caltrain (project 'Reimagine SamTrans').
SamTrans is getting too much money through Measure W and is continuing to mismanage that funding big time. The public didn't ask for a second HQ ($126M), but is still waiting for those bus shelters btw. ($53M Bus Stop Improvement Plan).
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.