Reimagine Metro hits speed bump due to aging buses, but expansion plans on tap for fall, CEO says

Santa Cruz Metro CEO Corey Aldridge says the agency’s aging bus fleet was the driving factor in delaying plans to increase service on two major crosstown routes and Highway 17, and that he should have seen the warning signs of mounting maintenance problems earlier. The agency is aiming for September to finally implement the last steps in its long-planned expansion.

For slightly over a year, Metro has been rolling out phases of a three-year pilot program it calls Reimagine Metro that includes sweeping service and route changes with the ambitious goal of doubling ridership from 3.5 million to 7 million rides annually and introducing more direct, frequent service with better transfers and no additional fares.

The final phase of changes, set for December, aimed to introduce 30-minute service along Route 3, which currently splits into two sections. The line running from Broadway Avenue and Seabright Avenue to 17th Avenue and Portola Drive was set to see service increased to every 30 minutes instead of once an hour, along with service every 15 minutes on the combined route that serves UC Santa Cruz. Highway 17 service was going to shift to every 30 minutes all day, rather than just during peak periods.

Those changes, however, did not come to fruition. In a letter to Metro riders on Dec. 20, Aldridge wrote that the agency’s aging buses — a few of which have reached 1 million miles — made it challenging to increase service on those routes. Buses were breaking down more often and required more maintenance. The agency paused its plans to expand service on Route 3 and Highway 17 and temporarily suspended service on Route 16, which runs from downtown to UC Santa Cruz via Laurel Street and Bay Street, as well as Route 90X, which runs between Santa Cruz and Watsonville.

Aldridge said that while most American transit systems are facing low staffing issues, Metro has enough bus drivers, and that the condition of its fleet is the biggest hurdle.

Metro’s director of planning and development, John Urgo, said that while just 0.5% of the agency’s bus fleet was inoperable in October and November, that jumped to 3.5% in December. Problems ranged from battery issues and broken ramps to engines simply not starting. Urgo attributes the problem to the transit agency’s decision to increase bus service by 40% as part of Reimagine Metro, which meant the aging buses had to run many more routes each day. This extra workload led to more frequent breakdowns and repairs, and maintenance issues began to snowball.

“Ultimately that falls with me. I should have seen it sooner, but I didn’t,” said Aldridge. “Everybody was relying on planning but we didn’t have that process in place to identify if the fleet could [manage the workload] and if operations could meet the demands of service changes.”

Aldridge said that since he took over as CEO in late April, he always viewed the Reimagine Metro plans as doable, but knew that such big endeavors often come with unforeseen challenges. He added that Metro had problems with communication breakdowns among different departments, an ongoing issue that made it difficult to coordinate a major project like Reimagine Metro. The agency has since created a new system of “checks and balances” to keep departments up to date on each others’ work, Metro spokesperson Danielle Glagola said. 

Urgo said the agency simply got ahead of itself in its ambitions given the current state of its bus fleet and needed a reality check. “We got a bunch of grant money to start putting in service and we just went off to the races,” he said. “Everyone here is trying to do the best we can for the public and add as much service as we possibly can, and I think we got overextended.” The agency received over $100 million in state and federal funds for new buses, route changes and transit station redevelopments.

However, Aldridge challenged Lookout columnist and Regional Transportation Commissioner Mike Rotkin’s assessment that the ambitious Reimagine Metro plans have come “crashing down.” He said 90% of the Reimagine Metro changes have already been implemented.

The agency has added additional maintenance shifts to help address problems with the fleet, Aldridge said. Maintenance crews used to work day shifts until 11 p.m. on weekdays, with skeleton day crews on weekends. Now, crews work until 2 a.m. on weekdays and the weekend day shifts are fully staffed.

Metro is set to receive 53 new hydrogen fuel-cell buses over the next year as part of the agency’s vision of a zero-emission public transit system. At $87.4 million, it represented the single largest purchase of hydrogen fuel-cell buses in the country when the transit agency voted to move forward with the deal in September 2023.

But those new buses come slowly and incrementally and must be tested before they are road ready, said Aldridge, adding that the gradual delivery of the hydrogen buses did not contribute to the delay in service changes. He said Metro receives one or two fuel-cell buses each week, and currently has five on site in the testing process.

“We knew we were going to be in 2025 before any of those would be ready to go,” he said. Aldridge hopes to have half of the 53 hydrogen fuel-cell buses on the road by September but said he’s confident that the agency can roll out the last of its Reimagine Metro service changes in the fall even if only a few hydrogen fuel-cell buses are on the road by that point, given the larger maintenance staff.

“At some point, we need to get these older buses out of our fleet because we know that they’re just going to continue to need repairs,” he said. “But we’re feeling confident that we’re going to be able to start lowering that number of buses that are unavailable and I’m feeling really good that we can definitely meet that” September timeline.

Urgo added that delaying the planned service changes until September gives the agency a chance to go back to the public and ask how the first year of service changes has gone, and what, if anything, should be adjusted in the final phase of changes later this year. That will include both online and in-person surveys as well as a round of countywide input sessions. Aldridge said Metro is planning to revamp its website in the coming months to improve transparency, and he hopes, public participation.

“We want to hear from the people that we don’t usually hear from. We make decisions based on the information that we have, but at times, I wonder if we heard more voices if we would make different decisions,” he said. “We have nothing to hide. Let’s share what we got and it will tell our story for us.”

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