On Tuesday March 26th WTS Sacramento welcomed James Boyle, Director of Planning for Sacramento Regional Transit (SacRT), for a presentation on SacRT Forward.
With the increased use of personal vehicles, rideshare platforms and bike/scooter sharing systems, we are seeing a nationwide trend in decreased transit ridership. Back in 2017, SacRT began obtaining community input through public involvement, which led to the draft bus network re-design in December 2018. SacRT outreach was an important aspect for the project to build community awareness. Since August 2017, they have held 33 presentations, 47 pop-up events and 20 open houses/workshops. SacRT also has been using social media to involve community input and awareness on “SacRT Forward.”
The re-designed draft route network was approved by the SacRT Board of Directors on February 25th 2019. The route re-design was focused on improving connections and increasing ridership, aspects of which included:
More linear routes
Areas of density
Neighborhood walkability
Bus route end anchors
Bus frequency
… and more
SacRT used the software remix to design and manage their bus routes by taking those desired features and inputting technical data. As a result, the new bus network routes (27 regular and 14 peak-hour-only) will run 7 days/week and in intervals of 45 minutes or less (all except one route). Riders will see an increase in reliability and an increase in performance. The frequency re-design dropped 60 minute headways from 44% on the old network, to only 4% on the new network during the weekdays. It also increased the 20-30 minute headways the entire week. SacRT will also be implementing additional SmaRT Ride zones for on-demand transit in wide areas not served by regional transit buses.
The original network re-design was on a cost-neutral basis. However, with the continuation of SB-1, SacRT now has $3 million to invest in improvements. With the new network, SacRT will evaluate the bus stops and bus hubs for chances to improve on existing amenities and will also implement a “bus stop balancing” project to remove stops and add in new stops where needed. The new network is set to be implemented in September 2019. SacRT will have monthly monitoring and reporting of the new network and will make quarterly service changes when necessary.
For more on SacRT Forward, visit http://sacrtforward.com/.
Thank you James for this interesting presentation on the future of ridership with SacRT!
