Quick Take:
Santa Cruz Metro is already working towards implementing Phase 2 of its Reimagine Metro initiative to upgrade the county’s transit system into a much more efficient, convenient service. In order to do that, the agency will incrementally add more buses to its fleet and hire 70 more drivers.
Santa Cruz Metro began rolling out major changes to the county’s transit system on Dec. 21. That largely involved adjusting bus routes, including a new Route 3 that connects the UC Santa Cruz campus to Live Oak, buses every 10 to 20 minutes at Cabrillo College on Routes 1 and 2 that span from Watsonville to Live Oak, and more frequent service between Santa Cruz and Watsonville.
Phase 2 involves rolling out Metro’s Wave Service, the agency’s name for a program that will run buses every 15 minutes, all day, on major cross-county corridors serving Watsonville and mid-county, a service extension from the Eastside through downtown to the UCSC campus to create a one-seat ride from Cabrillo College or the Capitola Mall all the way to UCSC, and all-day service on a Watsonville-to-Santa Cruz express route. 15-minute buses could be coming to those routes as early as June, and Metro expects Phase 2 to be completely implemented in September 2024, in time for the 2024 academic year.
John Urgo, director of planning and development for Santa Cruz Metro, said that currently, there are only two routes with 15-minute service, both of which run between UCSC and the downtown Santa Cruz Metro center. In Phase 2, there will be four routes with 15-minute service — two of which will run between UCSC and Cabrillo College, a third that will run between UCSC and the Capitola Mall, and a route between Cabrillo College and the Watsonville Transit Center.
“You get a one seat ride between the Cabrillo campus and UCSC, and it adds that 15-minute service all through Live Oak and Santa Cruz,” he said.
In order to pull off the major transformation while keeping the routes efficient, Metro will need to add more vehicles. Urgo said that Metro currently has 11, 60-foot articulated buses — extra-long vehicles with an accordion-like hinge in the middle that can carry 60 to 65 seated passengers and 15 to 25 seated passengers — for the UCSC service, and that the agency is getting 15 more buses through a partnership with the Riverside Transit Agency to bridge the gap until the 57 hydrogen buses get delivered. Metro CEO Michael Tree said that those buses will arrive in batches of 20, with the first delivery expected in about 18 months.
More buses means Metro will need more drivers. Urgo said that Metro has 155 drivers, but it needs 70 more to adequately staff the new vehicles. That’s a lot of new hires, but Urgo said close to 30 new drivers are already almost done with training.
Tree said that in order to attract drivers — something many transit systems have difficulty with — Metro raised the starting wage to more than $25 up from around $21, began offering a $4,000 signing bonus given over two years, and a referral bonus. However, Tree said that having a veteran driver switch to a full-time recruiting role made a huge difference due to his experience and knowledge of the position.
“He had been here for 20 years, and the minute he got out into the community to discuss the job is when everything changed,” he said. “The training department had to reorganize to handle the 30 new people suddenly coming in at once.”
With Phase 2 planned for full implementation in less than a year, we’ll continue closely following the path to the next evolution of Santa Cruz County’s transit system.
Latest news
Check out our Carmageddon road delay list here. This week, pay particular attention to:
The Highway 1 expansion project will prompt a daytime closure of the onramp to southbound Highway 1 from westbound 41st Avenue between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. from Tuesday through Thursday. The other ramps leading to Highway 1 from 41st Avenue will remain open. Commuters can expect delays of up to 10 minutes.
Restriping along Highway 9 continues this week, and will close down one lane of traffic at various segments from San Lorenzo Avenue in Felton to the intersection of Highway 1. The closure will last from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Tuesday through Thursday, and one alternating lane of traffic will be open while the work is ongoing.