AC Transit
Encyclopedia : A : AC : ACT : AC Transit
AC Transit (in full, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District) is a regional bus agency serving parts of Alameda County and Contra Costa County in the western coastal area of the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition, AC Transit runs "Transbay" routes across the San Francisco Bay to the city of San Francisco, and selected areas in San Mateo County and Santa Clara County.
AC Transit is constituted as a special district under California law. It is governed by seven elected members (five from geographic wards and two at-large). It is not a part of the Alameda or Contra Costa county governments, although the initials "AC" are often mistaken to mean "Alameda County."
The district is the successor to the Key System.
Bus service
Currently, AC Transit serves cities including Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, El Cerrito, Kensington, Albany, Richmond, El Sobrante, Pinole, San Pablo, Hayward, Piedmont, Castro Valley and Fremont. Most routes connect with regional train service, primarily BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit), in addition to ACE and the Capitol Corridor. AC Transit also connects with Oakland International Airport and the University of California, Berkeley.While most AC Transit service consists of local lines throughout the East Bay, the district also provides many transbay lines. Most of these run across the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge to connect communities as distant as El Sobrante and Newark with San Francisco's Transbay Terminal (formerly the terminus of the Key System).
Bus service is also provided across the bridges to the south. In 2003, the district introduced a San Mateo-Hayward Bridge route, Line M, to connect the BART stations of Castro Valley and Hayward with Foster City and San Mateo's Hillsdale Boulevard Caltrain station. A second San Mateo-Hayward Bridge route, Line MA, was added in 2006. Across the Dumbarton Bridge, AC Transit operates, under contract with a consortium of transit agencies (including AC Transit itself as well as BART, SamTrans, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, and Union City Transit), the Dumbarton Express, a series of bus lines connecting the Union City BART station with East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and Stanford University. Additionally, the district in 2004 began another Dumbarton Bridge route, Line U, a commute-hour service linking Stanford with ACE trains and the Fremont BART station.
In 2003, AC Transit created a new bus rapid transit line called the "72R Rapid" transit line on San Pablo Avenue. Between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m., buses run at a 12-minute frequency with stops 2/3 mile apart. The line uses no timepoints and instead allows buses to travel along the route as fast as traffic allows. Following the success of this experiment, similar lines elsewhere in the region are being planned.
Beginning December 10, 2005, the district began supplementing BART service, which does not run between midnight and 5 AM, by participating in the All-Nighter Network.
Route designations
AC Transit has several different divisions of bus line designations with different ranges of numbers for differently-purposed routes. In addition to this, it uses a number of suffixes – L for limited stops, R for Rapid (stop every ⅔ of a mile) service, and X for express (long distance and/or commuter service with long areas of no stops, notably freeways), as well as others for special segments. Some routes, such as the 72, have a variation that adds an additional length or loop in the route, and those trips are delineated with the letter M. Oftentimes, but not always, the letter may stand for a street on the route – in the case of the 72M, it veers off course onto MacDonald Avenue, which starts with an M. Local routes (1-99) also serve as "origins" of many route numbers in the hundreds. For example, a school line that follows much of the path of the 68 would usually be designated the 668. This pattern is used on a majority of 300, 600, and 800 series buses, but many have no corresponding regular route number. In lettered routes, numbered suffixes are sometimes used, such as LB1 for a variation of the LB line. Just because a certain range of numbers is reserved for a certain use does not mean that all the numbers/letters are in use.
- 1-99 – Local service routes operating in the East Bay service area outside Fremont and Newark only.
- 200-299 – Local service routes operating in the East Bay service area in Fremont and Newark only.
- 300-399 – Special service routes. These include late-night service, event service (i.e. seasonal Race Track service), and shuttle service between shopping malls and train stations. Many of these routes also operate only one or two days a week, or only during the morning or evening. Some, such as the 376, combine the popular segments of several routes and run after those routes cease running for the day since running the full lines would not attract sufficient passengers.
- 600-699 – Lines serving public and private schools, including high schools, middle/junior high schools, and some elementary schools. These lines operate on school days only and are open to all riders at regular fares.
- 800-899 – Lines that are part of the All-Nighter Network.
- A-Z – Transbay lines, express commuter lines that cross the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, the San Mateo Bridge, or the Dumbarton Bridge connecting the East Bay with San Francisco, San Mateo, and Palo Alto, respectively. Combinations of letters and numbers are also used, as is the case with the N series (i.e. N, NL, NX1, NX2, etc.). All Transbay routes are lettered, with the 800 being the sole exception.
Vehicles
Also in 2003, AC Transit upgraded its bus infrastructure with new low-floor buses from Van Hool, purchasing A330 40-foot and AG300 60-foot articulated buses, and added satellite tracking units on all vehicles. The GPS tracking units fix the position of the vehicle, and a private radio network sends updates to headquarters every 3 to 16 minutes. Vehicles on selected lines can be viewed from AC Transit's NextBus passenger information system. More recently, it also purchased a number of new, custom-designed 30-foot buses for its neighborhood routes, called the Van Hool A300KAC Transit news release [announcing the launch] of their new 30-foot bus.
AC Transit also is a worldwide leader in implementing new, environmentally-friendly technologies. Three hydrogen-powered buses, based on the 40-foot A330 bus (see above), currently operate on the 50 and 57 bus lines to test their real-world feasibility and reliabilityAC Transit's [HyRoad program]. In addition, the agency plans on purchasing up to 10 hybrid-diesel buses based on its new 30-foot bus.
All AC Transit buses in active service are accessible to passengers in wheelchairs(
).
A detailed list of vehicles:
- Van Hool A330 40-foot
- Van Hool AG300 60-foot articulated
- Van Hool A300K 30-foot
- Van Hool A300K 30-foot hybrid
- New Flyer Industries D60 articulated
- NABI 40-foot LFW
- NABI 40-foot
- Motor Coach Industries D4500
- General Motors Diesel Division Buses T6H 5307N
Funding
As with almost all U.S. transit services, service is government-subsidized. In 2003, AC Transit responded to budget cuts in California by reducing and eliminating many bus routes.In 2004 voters in the AC Transit district, along with voters in other parts of the San Francisco Bay Area approved Regional Measure 2, which provides regional transportation projects (including AC Transit) with $125 million of additional yearly revenues. Additionally, 2/3 of the voters approved Measure BB, a parcel tax specifically supporting AC Transit.
In April 2005, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission was [sued for underfunding of AC Transit in favor of suburban rail transit serving wealthier populations], such as BART and Caltrain. Those services had undergone expansions in recent years, while AC Transit had been forced to cut services and raise fares.
References
External links
- [AC Transit] - Official website
- [NextBus arrivals]
- AC Transit info at transit.511.org: [Local], [Transbay]
- [AC Transit web page about Van Hool buses]
- [Oakland Berkeley & Eastern]: AC Transit's predecessors
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