In 2022, AC Transit carried a total of 91,565 weekday riders, down from 175,575 weekday riders in 2013. AC Transit operates 131 bus lines. As indicated in the table below, AC’s top 20 lines carried a total of 75,620 riders a weekday. That means that the remaining 111 lines averaged only 144 riders a weekday. This dismal number explains why one constantly sees virtually empty 40 foot and even 80-foot long AC Transit buses lumbering through the streets of the East Bay.

In an effort to address this problem, AC Transit is currently planning a set of route changes scheduled to be implemented next August. Since those managing the rerouting program are too busy to talk to us, here are several BATWG observations, some of which have been made before.

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  As indicated in the Table, Routes 1T, 51B, 40 and 51A are all carrying a respectable 5,000 riders a day or more. What is it about those five lines that makes them do so much better than the rest of the system? What sets them apart? Those engaged in planning the new route changes should take a very close look at these routes and determine what makes them standouts.

• Surveying and encouraging input from only today’s riders greatly reduces AC Transit’s ability to attract new riders.
• AC has always had a tendency to route its buses directly to every potential destination along the way. To achieve this purpose many of the routes have ended up zig zagged. No doubt, those bound for the intended enroute destinations are delighted. However, the zig zagging also strongly detours anyone who wants to get anywhere else with reasonable dispatch. Zig zagging, including the zig zagging that tends to take place in and around “transit centers”, does not help ridership. Buses do not zig zag well.
• People must be able to find both the routes and their bus stops. Across the Bay, SF Muni has many problems. But its routes are easy to find and easy to understand. Many of AC’s routes are not easy to find and therefore not so easy to use. There are many ways, some requiring intensive discussions with various local jurisdictions, that could improve the situation. Returning some one-way streets to two-way streets should not be ruled out. In the heady days of the past when it was thought that automobiles made every other form of surface travel obsolete, many cities including Oakland turned many two-way streets into one-way streets with nary a thought given to how the changes would impact the affected bus lines. It’s not too late to correct the mistakes of the past.

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• Is anyone for thinking outside the box? Take College Avenue for instance. The automobiles are there to stay. It’s too narrow to squeeze in even one bus-only lane, much less two. Auto and buses have moved along College with exasperating sluggishness for decades. Maybe there’s a better way.
• Instead of truncating Line 51A/51B at the Rockridge BART Station, why not end it at College and Bancroft? Why route both Lines 51A and 851 along virtually the same route via College, Broadway and then all the way through Alameda? Why zig zag Line 51B line, tortured as it is along College Avenue, through downtown Berkeley and then via University Avenue all the way to the Berkely Yacht Club? Instead, why not send a University Avenue line from the Yacht Club to take up the southern part of Line 52 that circles UC Berkeley?
• Another AC tendency is to connect short stretches of well used lines to other lines headed in other directions even though demand for such connections is low. In Oakland why send Line 33 from Montclair along a gigantic V-shaped route all the way through downtown Oakland and then back up into Piedmont? Why not try to keep both legs of the V straighter and more direct?
• A great deal could be done to make transferring faster, easier, safer and generally less off-putting. Fast and efficient transfers would make the network more useful to more people, both by providing better coverage and by allowing more lines to be straighter and faster. Regardless of the reasons for it, the fact that riders must still pay for AC transfers in 2023 is beyond credulity.
• When it comes time to discuss specific changes to specific routes there will be emotional responses, including some from those who just don’t like anything new. To avoid having to make irrational “compromises” to placate noisy and sometimes uninformed opponents, there must first be a general understanding of the basic reasons for the changes and the advantages of an upgraded system.

And finally, unless it makes eminently good sense to change an existing route, don’t.