Thursday, August 5, 2010
Oakland Launches New Broadway Shuttle
Business / Transportation Alex Weber — Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 1:25 PM
A gaggle of beaming representatives from the City of Oakland, AC Transit, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and local business coalitions gathered on Franklin and 22nd Streets in downtown Oakland this morning to officially launch the new, free Broadway shuttle system — or, “The B,” as they’re calling it.
- Alex Weber
- The B is free and connects downtown with Jack London Square
Officials hope The B will spur economic development in the various downtown Oakland districts that run along Broadway. The four redesigned, freshly green-painted buses that comprise The B will travel up and down Broadway from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and link Jack London Square with Old Oakland, Chinatown, City Center, Uptown, and the Lake Merritt area.
- The B goes from Uptown to the waterfront
The B, which will be operated by AC Transit drivers and has been running for a couple weeks already, provides easy access to Broadway’s numerous restaurants and Oakland’s recreational waterfront attractions. It also represents a green, free, and direct route to Jack London Square and downtown workplaces for commuters who use BART, the ferry, and Amtrak to get into the city, said Oakland Redevelopment Director Gregory Hunter.
- The B runs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays.
The B is the result of what project manager Zach Seal called “a very robust public-private partnership.” Key players were the Oakland Redevelopment Agency, business associations in Jack London Square and Lake Merritt, and most importantly the air district, which awarded Oakland a $1 million competitive grant to be spent on The B’s operation over the next two years, according to Damian Breen, the air district’s director of strategic incentives. The B will remove more than 350 vehicles from downtown Oakland’s streets and reduce five tons of greenhouse gases per year, Breen said.
It took just nine months for the project to go from the drawing board to the streets. “That’s very quick by governmental standards,” noted Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan, a longtime former AC Transit board member whom others called a cheerleader for the project since Day One.
- Alex Weber
- Kaplan helped spearhead the creation of The B.
Kaplan said the next step will be to extend The B’s hours into the evening to provide free travel for late-night grubbers and bar-hoppers, helping to inject downtown Oakland’s nightlife scene with an influx of patrons. But for now, Kaplan’s just glad to see The B taking people up and down one of Oakland’s main commercial corridors. “We had a hole in the transit system,” she said. “This will help to weave that together.”
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
It is Good to have the B bus, but it doesn't run every 10 minutes like they announce it. I have been waiting for it up to 20 minutes. Another thing is that when you get in the bus at the end of the line, the driver doesn't tell you he/she's stoping and how long the stop will be. They leave the bus unattended and passengers wondering if he/she went to the b/r or break, or what. A little more communication would be good, and a more reliable schedule. I know that because it is free I shouldn't complain, but then why say it runs every 10 minutes when it doesn't?
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Schedule info is here: http://www.meetdowntownoak.com/shuttle.php
"The "B" runs: between Jack London Square and Grand Avenue
Monday-Friday, 7am-7pm (except on major holidays)
every 10 minutes during commute hours and lunchtime
every 15 minutes all other times"
If the B is successful, then who knows--they might expand the schedule.
I haven't taken it yet, but solves my problem of getting from Rockridge to downtown and Jack London by bus. You can take the 51 from Rockridge, get off at Grand or further down, and then let the free B to take you the rest of the way.
I don't know how many buses are running; therefore I don't know what paint/operational cost AC Transit has, but I think the intent is good and I see it as an investment. An accessible downtown means an incentive to businesses to the area, new or growing businesses means more employment, and tax revenues. Employment opportunities might mean employees may need to take BART or AC Transit to the area, increasing ridership and, hopefully, helps to get these transit agencies in the right direction and might encourage them to support other innovative partnerships as they've done w/ this shuttle.
A few answers:
It's worth having a free bus that only operates downtown because of how many businesses are densely crammed into that area. Not a lot of milage, lots of benefit.
As for the cost: it's all federal money, from a grant secured by Kaplan. The grant program is specifically for dense urban areas.
Also, AC transit cancelled some service in downtown due to budget cuts. The federal grant secured by Kaplan covers the loss of some local money.
Maybe if it ran all the way up to Rockridge, it might be useful. But I don't see the purpose of a bus line running only 24 blocks.
I wish there was a similar route on Shattuck in Berkeley or Solano in Berkeley-Albany. How often does it run? Anything would be better than waiting half an hour for a bus.
How much does it cost to repaint those brand new buses?
At least $8000 a pop! and AC is supposedly broke,I guess there is enough money for fancy paint jobs but not enough for drivers pensions,
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