City of Alameda – AC Transit ILC
October 16, 2025 Meeting Notes
1. Roll Call/Welcome and Introductions
Attendees: Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft, Councilmember Tony Daysog, Director Joel Young (chair), Director Jean Walsh
Meeting started at 9:01 a.m.
2. Announcements/Public Comments
3. Notes from Previous Meeting
No comments
4. Free Bus Pass Program for Seniors and People with Disabilities Update Liz Escobar: Introducing newly branded program Alameda Connect, which is the new name for all transportation programs offered through the city of Alameda. The program this year has reached a high of 960 participants, but following a strict enrollment renewal process, current active participants include 697 members. There is still a waitlist of 65 individuals – we have plan to clear the waitlist in November. We also recently launched a travel training workshop to help people learn how to use the public transit system. Traveled together to a local farmers market. It was a successful event, plan to continue doing travel trainings on a monthly or quarterly basis.
Mayor Ashcraft: If the highest program membership was 960 and the current membership is 697, why do we have a waitlist at all?
Liz Escobar: We want to monitor how cost and ridership looks in October before we revisit the waitlist and open up the program. We also made an effort to reach out, several times, to folks who did not re-enroll.
Lisa Foster: We’re also at the peak of what we can afford. We didn’t remove the people who were inactive – we removed the people who did not choose to re-enroll.
So we’re taking a month to see what the trends are.
Mayor Ashcraft: Consider providing this presentation to the City’s Commission on Persons with Disabilities.
Director Young: For the people on the waitlist, are you suggesting that they enroll in the Clipper Start program as a means of at least lowering their costs while they’re on the waitlist?
Liz Escobar: Kim Ridgeway comes in once a month to issue Senior Clipper cards to folks, but we haven’t been doing the communications about Clipper Start. Will start doing that.
Director Young: If the SB63 ballot initiative passes, an estimated $10M will be coming to ACTC. I’m pushing for that money to be awarded to the Student Transit Pass Program (STPP), but it makes sense for that to be pushed to the Free Bus Pass Program for Seniors and Persons with Disabilities as well.
5. Realign Implementation Update
Robert del Rosario: Realign was implemented on August 10, so it’s been in service for about 2 months. The rollout and implementation was fairly smooth, but there is still some bus stop work that needs to be done and we’re still making progress. There were some significant changes in Alameda that have had some impact on customers, like overcrowding on Line O resulting from the removal of former Line OX. We’ve been able to deploy a standby bus on Line O whenever workforce allows, to help deal with the crowding. Line 19 was extended into Alameda Point and there have been delays.
Running times will be adjusted for that as we’re aware fixes need to be made to get it on schedule. Line 96 was extended into Brooklyn Basin in Oakland and serving it has created some travel time changes, we’re looking into if we can shift trip times to better accommodate students in particular who were affected by the changes. Again, we’re operating in a resource-constrained environment, so we’re looking into various fixes that we can make for our next signup to address these issues with our limited resources.
Mayor Ashcraft: Why has Line 19 been so challenging?
Robert and Crystal: Confusing detours, confusion with ongoing road closures in Alameda Point, operators who are unfamiliar with the routing were occasionally getting lost.
6. Named Measure BB Bus Project Repurposing Update
Lisa Foster: The City has been working towards repurposing the funds that were in the 2014 Measure BB Transportation Expenditure Plan. It was intended for a rapid bus project on Ralph Appezzatto Memorial Parkway but since Realign didn’t include that, we’ve repurposed it to 3 transit-focused multimodal projects in the City. The update is that at the end of September, ACTC started a 45-day comment period to get comments on the proposed amendment. Approval of the final Commission resolution would be early 2026.
7. New Developments/Transportation Management Association Update Brian McGuire: Thus far, in 2025 we have ~1,500 active users of the BayPass within the Alameda TMA. This is the second full year of the BayPass add-on for TMA members. 33% of all ridership is on AC Transit. Next steps - we’re trying to figure out how sustainable the program is given increasing costs.
Mike O’Hara (TMA Board President): We’re thrilled with the results of the BayPass thus far and we want to figure out how to continue implementing it. Thrilled to hear we have funding through 2027. Lots of great anecdotal stories about the positive economic impact of BayPass within the City. We also continue to have communications with the EasyPass team.
Mayor Ashcraft: Please clarify the difference between BayPass and EasyPass.
Mike O’Hara: We can’t have the BayPass without the EasyPass. The EasyPass covers all the bus service, and the BayPass add-on covers all other Bay Area transit.
Mayor Ashcraft: How many participants in the program? And what is the cost? Brian McGuire: Currently 2,600 eligible participants, and 1,537 of those are active users. Cost is a little over $100 per year per participant for EasyPass and the Bay Pass is a $200 add-on. So it’s a little over $300 per participant per year. To date, the TMA has been able to cover 100% of those costs.
Mike O’Hara: The TMA funds are utilized for multiple programs, including the water shuttle. The way the program is administered is that the potential user has to opt in.
We’ve been doing a lot of outreach work, at leasing offices, etc.
8. Oakland Alameda Access Project (OAAP)
Robert del Rosario: OAAP project construction is expected to start in 2026. Obviously there will be lots of impacts on Alameda residents and transit riders with the closures of the tubes. There will need to be a decent amount of collaboration to understand what the real impacts to transit will be and how the project will adapt as construction continues. There are ongoing meetings with the project team.
Lisa Foster: Caltrans doesn’t have the full construction schedule yet but when they have it they will share with the cities and AC Transit. The project team will be doing a series of public workshops when more information is available.
Mayor Ashcraft: As the vice chair of ACTC, I’m happy to see that Alameda’s concerns are being taken seriously. Much of the burden during construction is on Alameda but we understand that it’s a project that needs to be done. The project team has committed to reducing the number of months of the tube closures. We’ll need to keep a close eye on the communications piece and regular updates will be important, even if the communication is just “no new updates”.
9. Park St TSP and Signal Optimization
Maria Henderson: Park St Transit Signal Priority (TSP) project along Park St from Blanding to Otis. We have been coordinating closely with the city. Proceeding towards final design. We are trying to complete the work before OAAP per the City’s request and direction, and we will be presenting to the Transportation Commission in November or December. As this time we’re just trying to make sure we can expedite the work before OAAP starts.
10. AC Transit Ridership and Complaints with Actual Missed Runs Crystal Wang: The agenda packet includes the attachment with the performance summary for lines operating in Alameda for May through August 2025. We don’t have too much Realign data available yet, but from the data presented in the attachment, ridership has stayed consistent and most lines are meeting our on-time performance target of 72%. Line 19 and the transbay lines were struggling and that can be attributed to the routing confusion and passenger overcrowding discussed earlier, but we will continue to monitor this. The agenda packet also includes information about customer complaints received, which were largely around Line 19 routing confusion, Lines 20 and 21 which are now 30 and 31, and transbay Line O overcrowding.
11. Next Meeting
Thursday, February 12, 2026
Thursday, June 11, 2026
Thursday, October 8, 2026
12. Agenda Planning Requests
Proposed ILC Restructuring
13. Announcements/Public Comments
Mayor Ashcraft: Memorial for Director Peeples was lovely.
Meeting adjourned 9:50am