Bay Area transit trimming services
With schools closed and workers staying home, ridership has plunged
Caltrain, VTA and Samtrans on Friday announced the most significant changes yet to Bay Area public transportation amid efforts to contain the coronavirus.
But with transit ridership and traffic evaporating as many of the region’s commuters work from home, those agencies may not be the last to cut service.
Starting Tuesday, Caltrain will no longer offer the rail line’s “Baby Bullet” service between San Francisco and San Jose during the morning and afternoon commutes.
The popular express train is often packed with Silicon Valley commuters, but Caltrain officials cited a recent 75% drop in oneway and day pass ticket sales in making their decision to cut the service.
They did not say when the route might return. Local and limited service, as well as off-peak and weekend schedules, will remain the same, Caltrain officials said.
Meanwhile, with schools in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties closed for at least three weeks, both Samtrans and VTA said they are cutting student-centric services.
VTA officials said they have suspended their “school trippers” routes, which run on school days and are timed to local bell schedules.
The agency also will run shorter light rail vehicles, which will only be one car instead of two or three.
In a blog post late Friday announcing the change, VTA officials also indicated more cuts were possible.
“We will continue to analyze ridership data to identify trends and will be making decisions on whether a
change in the level of service is warranted and to what degree,” they wrote. “This will be a large area of focus for VTA going forward to ensure we are responding appropriately to match our resources with the most effective level of service.”
Most Samtrans riders won’t notice anything different from that system’s
changes — the only difference is that Samtrans buses will no longer serve certain stops that are marked “school days only,” spokeswoman Tasha Bartholomew said Friday.
About 40 routes in the Samtrans system make those stops, she said; otherwise service will look like a typical weekday when schools aren’t in session.
Samtrans’ ridership is down 19% since containment efforts began, Bartholomew said.
“Samtrans will continue to monitor the situation and maintain regular contact with local authorities and transit agencies to determine whether any additional service changes will need to be made in the future,” she said.
Capitol Corridor officials wrote in a blog post that while they plan to keep normal service intact at least through March 27, they “will evaluate ridership and decide if service adjustments are needed beyond that.”
BART officials have been adamant that they are not planning to reduce service, even as the agency loses hundreds of thousands of dollars each day with ridership far below normal.
But leaders have acknowledged they have plans in place should the agency be forced to cut back or shut down entirely, whether because the government orders tighter travel restrictions or because BART has too many sick workers to run the system.