Riding the City Bus

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  • Crocker Highlands 606 Bus---adding more trips

    – May 12, 2019
    (4 replies)

    606 - Berkeley - Oakland - H.Royce School

    We're moving to Crocker Highland's next month and would love to take advantage of the 606 route that goes down Mandana to get to and from Lakeshore.  It looks like the route only makes two trips--one in the AM and one in the afternoon, mainly servicing Head Royce.  Does anyone have any ideas on how to see if they could add more trips so it runs a few more times throughout the day? Has anyone tried this before?  If there is enough interest, we could organize to pitch to AC transit.

    Thanks in advance,

    A

    May 12, 2019

    All of the bus routes with the format 6xx are school routes, so they are funded through specific programs to get children to and from school. They align to the school bell schedules, and most don't run during the summer or on school holidays. Most of those routes don't have enough ridership to exist outside of school hours, though you can certainly write to suggest that they explore adding regular service there as well. The 29 already runs along Lakeshore so your best bet in the interim may be to walk to one of its stops.

    I live in the Crocker Highland's neighborhood, but from what I know, the AC transit 600 lines are for kids going and coming from school. My two sons use the 655 and 648 to go to Montera middle school and Skyline high school. That's why they only run twice a day and they only operate on scheduled school days.  I'm guessing anyone can ride those buses, but it would be a challenge, I think to ride with a bunch of middle schoolers!

    As others have said, all the 6XX routes only exist to get kids to school.  They will not be expanded except if they are full at school time and a second run is added.  This did happen for a while with the 606 on the afternoon run; the bus is more popular in the afternoon and it was filling up, so AC Transit added a second run 10 minutes after the first.  However, once the ridership dropped back down again through normal fluctuations, they canceled that run.  By the way, my kids have taken this bus daily for 12 years, and while it is very convenient, I wouldn't call it 100% reliable.  Sometimes it just doesn't show up; sometimes it shows up so late the kids are late to school.  All complaints to AC Transit have largely gone unheeded.

    thanks everyone! really appreciate this helpful info.