pages: TransportationCommission/2012-09-26.pdf, 6
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TransportationCommission | 2012-09-26 | 6 | AC Transit and Alameda City Council to talk about increasing transit service to the community. Commissioner Schatmeier said that he lives on Bay Farm Island and was a regular user of Line OX before the policy change. He mentioned that Line 21 was the underlying local service and used to serve Bay Farm from Park Street every 15 minutes. However, a couple of years ago, AC Transit cut the frequency in half. Yet, the Line OX service made the service cut more palatable because it was available during peak periods. AC Transit made a 75 percent service cut without input from the public - it is a significant service cut. Moreover, there are around 23 frequencies of Line OX buses in combination of morning and afternoon and when referring to the memo presented by staff, there were 41 student passengers and 12 local passengers. Ultimately, the 41 student passengers could be spread amongst those 23 buses, but what AC Transit is probably telling us is that they are not spread out and are concentrated amongst a few buses in the morning. Thus, it seemed to be a morning issue. He explained that one solution would be that AC Transit rescind the policy for the afternoon and evening buses and possibly create an interim step to restore local service in the evening. This step would require only one change to the Clipper card in the evening after leaving the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco. The result would lead to multiple uses for the line that potentially would attract additional riders. The riders boarding in downtown Alameda towards Bay Farm in the afternoon/evening would be filling vacated seats from Transbay riders. He advised that the Commission envision a complete picture, which includes some of these possibilities beyond what the staff has recommended. Commissioner Wong asked whether the first Line 631 was available to students at 6:52 am. She explained that originally, there were a lot of students boarding Line OX and she wanted to know which Line OX bus they were boarding since there were 7 am classes scheduled. Commissioner Vargas mentioned that AC Transit staff should review the school's class schedule to see what matches well for bus service. Furthermore, he mentioned that Commissioner Schatmeier's concerns regarding the frequency of Line 21 and evening policy modifications for Line OX were worth noting. Commissioner Schatmeier stated his past conversations with Cory Lavigne concluded that restoring the local Line OX policy in the afternoon would be feasible. He asked Mr. Lavigne if the policy restoration would have to wait until the next driver sign up and Mr. Lavigne stated that this change would not require coordination with the quarterly service changes. Since he could not confirm or deny that conclusion, he asked AC Transit staff to relay the message to Mr. Lavigne's successor. Linda Morris replied that originally the agency wanted to wait for the service change because it is a big change and the agency wants to ensure that passengers are notified. Regarding Commissioner Schatmeier's conversation with Mr. Lavigne, she would have to speak with the operations department and Robert del Rosario, Mr. Lavigne's successor. Commissioner Schatmeier assumed that Mr. Lavigne was uncomfortable with doing something different in the morning than in the afternoon because it might be confusing to the public or drivers. However, he seemed receptive because of the special nature of the case. Ultimately, Commissioner Schatmeier did not want to wait until the spring to make the changes. Page 6 of 10 | TransportationCommission/2012-09-26.pdf |