South City hopes to boost shuttle ridership

The program relies largely on funding from the San Mateo County Transportation Authority, though the city also provides a 25% match.

Councilmember Mark Nagales said the shuttle provides a critical service, but stagnant ridership — particularly on the western, or orange, route — could put the program in jeopardy in the near future.

“The complaints I hear are that it takes so long to get from point A to point B, and I don’t know how we can fix that. … The TA does look at shuttle services in terms of ridership, and they say ‘is it working?’” Nagales said. “There are times where the TA has actually taken away funding for shuttles because the ridership isn’t going up, and I don’t want that to happen to our shuttles.”

The shuttle’s blue and green lines have higher ridership, around 6,600 riders per month, compared to the newer orange line, about 1,000 per month. The orange line’s lower ridership is likely a product of its recent launch, as well as the geography of the area.

However, Deputy Public Works Director Dave Bockhaus added the city hopes to pilot an on-demand service that would make the program more appealing and efficient.

“Other cities have piloted on-demand shuttle programs where you put in a call to an app, it comes to you, and it goes where you need to go. That’s what we’re looking at next. We’d like to evolve into that,” Bockhaus said.

Some councilmembers, including James Coleman, said they would be in support of such an initiative, especially for the harder-to-navigate orange line.

“On-demand shuttle makes a lot of sense because there are a lot of neighborhoods that are just hard to reach, and that on-demand shuttle is where you can get into those pockets that aren’t serviced by public transit or our free shuttle,” he said. “I would like to see the data on the orange line when it comes to where people are being picked up and getting off, and I’d be open to editing this route potentially in the future if there continues to be issues.”

For the next two years, the cost to operate the shuttle will be $2.6 million, about $650,000 of which will come from the city. Councilmembers unanimously approved applying for the TA grant funding.