City of Alameda – AC Transit ILC
July 13, 2022 Meeting Notes
1. Roll Call/Welcome and Introductions
a. Attendees - Elsa Ortiz, Chris Peeples, John Knox White, Trish Herrera Spencer
2. Announcements/Public Comments
a. No comments
3. Notes from the Previous ILC Meeting (April 13, 2022) a. No comments
4. Zero Emission Transit Bus Technology Analysis, Plan and Future a. Salvador Llamas: AC Transit has completed a ZEB Study and ZEB Transition Plan (both are available on the AC Transit website). Findings from the ZEB Study will be used to guide staff and inform future decision-making in transitioning the fleet to ZEB. We are prioritizing ZEB deployment in disadvantaged communities that have been disproportionally impacted by emissions/poor air quality. AC Transit currently has 43 ZEBs (36 FCEB and 7 BEB), will be receiving 21 more BEBs this year, and have plans to purchase 34 FCEBs in the future. b. John Knox White: Commendation to Sal for knowledge and experience with ZEBs.
5. AC Transit Ridership and Complaints with Actual Missed Runs a. David Berman: Overall ridership is trending upward on local lines relative to 2021, but we're still not at pre-pandemic ridership levels. In terms of customer feedback, most complaints we've received are related to pass-ups and no shows.
We are continuing to hire operators in an effort to address these issues. b. Chris Peeples: Can you explain the incidents and cancelled trips chart? c. David Berman: It’s just a percentage breakdown, similar to a pie chart. d. Elsa Ortiz: What about ridership on the Transbay service compared to prepandemic levels? e. David Berman: We are not operating as much Transbay service as we were prepandemic, and we still have a ways to go in recovering ridership. f. John Knox White: As a Transbay rider, I recently took Line O and the bus was full. Can tell ridership is going up.
g. David Berman: Looking towards fall, we will be looking more closely at demand and matching the types of vehicles (in terms of vehicle capacity) being operated on the Transbay lines
6. Line 78 Update
a. David Berman: We have an additional year-long pilot on Line 78. At the end of the year we will be doing a more robust analysis on how the pilot is performing.
Thank you to City staff for the partnership and helping to facilitate the service. b. Elsa Ortiz: Are we doing any marketing for Line 78?
c. Nichele Laynes: We are not doing significant marketing at this point. The plan is to start doing more marketing in the Fall.
d. John Knox White: Paid parking is still set to begin in January
7. Free Bus Pass Program for Seniors and Peoples with Disability Update a. Margaret Tseng: This is a 3-year pilot program to provide seniors and people with disabilities with unlimited access to bus rides. The pilot program began on July 1. To date, 113 Alameda residents have participated, and 66 of them were from Mastick Senior Center
b. Elsa Ortiz: How many people can use this program?
c. Margaret Tseng: Up to 315 participants, but this is also dependent on the number of boardings
8. AC Transit Service Recovery Update
a. Robert Del Rosario: We are trying our best to minimize cancellations and bring service back to pre-pandemic levels, which has been challenging due to operator availability. We've made some scheduling and reliability improvements starting August 2022. Our scheduling parameters have been inefficient since we haven't been operating as much Transbay service (pre-pandemic, buses would operate a couple school trips then immediately turn around to operate Transbay service), so we worked with our scheduling software provider to address the inefficiencies.
This is only a one-time fix, but we expect scheduling to be more efficient moving forward. After addressing the inefficiencies we were able to free up a number of operators to implement some service improvements. For the fall sign-up we are returning school service, and have coordinated with Alameda Unified and other school districts. We also continue to add service back as resources allow, in accordance with our Service Recovery Priorities list. For Alameda, a new schedule has been added to Lines 21 and 51A to improve service reliability.
Outside of Transbay service, we have most Alameda lines running at prepandemic levels.
9. New Developments Update
a. Brian McGuire: A term sheet for Alameda Point was recently approved by the City Council. Site A Phase 2 is coming back to the Planning Board for discussion later this month. Will be looking at adding in more housing to meet RHNA and housing element obligations.
b. John Knox White: The new intersection at Sherman/Clement is open c. Trish Herrera Spencer: We voted to continue to support the bike/pedestrian bridge across the estuary
10. Street Project Update: Encinal, Grand, Mecartney/Island, Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific, Central, Clement/Tilden, and Otis/Doolittle/SR 61 and Commercial Street Program a. Brian McGuire: Protected bike lanes on Grand St for access to Wood School and the park. The Mecartney project is currently TBD. Lincoln/Marshall/Pacific project is currently undergoing community outreach and concept development.
Clement/Tilden is in concept development, and the next round of community outreach will be in in the fall. For Clement/Tilden there will be an option that includes a roundabout - the variable is if and how we connect the truck route on Clement to Tilden. For the Commercial Street Parklet Program we've been working on safety improvements and striping.
11. Next Meetings and Discuss Potential for Hybrid Meetings a. Wednesday, October 12, 2022 at 9:00am
12. Announcements/Public Comments
a. Elsa Ortiz: AC Transit is participating in the Job Fair at the College of Alameda today
13. Adjournment
a. Meeting adjourned at 9:42am