Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
AC Transit adds trips, outlines school supplementary service and reports senior-pass usage and waitlist
Loading...
Summary
AC Transit said February service changes added trips to ease overcrowding, described how supplementary school service is timed to bell schedules, and the City of Alameda reported nearly 116,000 senior/disabled rides July–Dec 2025 with a remaining waitlist of about 35 and a requested $70,000 annual budget allocation to sustain and expand the pilot.
AC Transit staff told the ILC on Feb. 12 that recent service adjustments and school-day supplementary trips aim to address overcrowding and improve reliability in Alameda.
Crystal White, transportation planner at AC Transit, said the district made service changes on Feb. 1 to respond to rider and operator feedback. Notable adjustments affecting Alameda include a termination change for Line 19 (now ending at Fruitvale BART), minor schedule fixes for lines 30, 31 and 96, and an additional morning and afternoon weekday trip for Transbay Line O to relieve overcrowding.
Robert Del Rosario explained the agency used improved operator availability and spare operators (the "extra board") to add the February trips. He said the district has raised "service operated" and is regularly above 98% (the district goal is 99.5%), which freed capacity to add the new runs.
Sean Deese Lejean, acting service planning manager, described supplementary school service: these are additional trips on school days (often 600-series or added local trips) arranged to arrive about 15–20 minutes before school and depart 5–15 minutes after dismissal. He said AC Transit operates roughly nine supplementary trips a day in Alameda, averaging about 30–35 passengers per trip after correcting a ridership table that had double-counted extra trips.
On student transit fare programs, Deese Lejean summarized the ACTC Student Transit Pass program: launched in 2017, available to sixth–12th graders in participating districts on a means-tested basis (free and reduced lunch qualification), and provides a Clipper card for free local rides and a 50% BART discount; participation within the broader program covers about 132 schools districtwide, and local implementation relies on schools returning bell-schedule data by March to align trips for August launches.
Liz Escobar, Alameda's paratransit coordinator, briefed the committee on the city's free bus pass pilot for seniors and people with disabilities. Escobar reported nearly 116,000 rides or taps recorded from July through December 2025 (about 19,300 monthly) and said the program continues to generate walk-in interest and calls; the transcript reported current enrollment as "7 30" members and discussion interpreted that as several hundred participants. Escobar said about 30 people were recently moved off the waitlist and roughly 35 people remain; city staff said a midyear budget request asks for $70,000 per fiscal year to support the program and help clear the remaining waitlist, noting staff need a complete month of post-enrollment data to confirm cost trends.
Committee members thanked staff for coordination and asked that AC Transit and city staff continue to post rider alerts at stops, provide translated materials, and maintain communications through rider alerts, stop signage and project web pages.
Next steps: AC Transit will monitor on-time performance after February changes and continue outreach to schools; city staff will evaluate waitlist data to determine whether to expand senior/disabled enrollment based on funding and ridership trends.
