Comprehensive Operational Analysis
Final Network Plan
February 2022
“Advocating and delivering quality
public transportation as a leader within
our community and industry.”
Dan Boyle
& associates, inc.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ......................................................................................................3 Why does MST’s network of bus lines need a redesign? .................................................................4 The Challenge of Planning a Good Transit Network in Monterey County .......................................9 2 Key Choices in Redesigning the Network .........................................................12 Ridership vs. Coverage ...................................................................................................................13 Local vs. Regional Service ...............................................................................................................14 Equality vs. Equity ...........................................................................................................................15 3 How Public Input Shaped This Plan ...................................................................16 Phase 1: Understanding the Community’s Values and Priorities .....................................................17 Phase 2: Input Received on the Draft Plan ......................................................................................19 How Comments on the Draft Plan Were Incorporated in the Final Plan .........................................20 4 Key Elements of the Plan ..................................................................................21 Policy Direction ...............................................................................................................................22 Timeline and Funding Scenarios .....................................................................................................23 Existing vs. Future Network Maps – Existing ..................................................................................24 Existing vs. Future Network Maps – Medium Scenario ...................................................................25 Existing vs. Future Network Maps – Low Scenario ..........................................................................26 Existing vs. Future Network Maps – High Scenario .........................................................................27 Higher frequencies and more consistent hours. ..............................................................................28 Timed transfers for faster local and regional travel. ........................................................................29 Service that is more direct, and less specialized. ............................................................................30 5 Existing vs. Proposed Service by Area ............................................................. 31 Salinas – Existing Service ................................................................................................................32 Salinas – Medium Scenario ..............................................................................................................33 Salinas – How many people would be near service? .......................................................................34 Salinas – Low, Medium and High Scenarios ....................................................................................35 Monterey Bay & Peninsula – Existing ..............................................................................................36 Monterey Bay & Peninsula – Medium Scenario ...............................................................................37 Monterey Bay & Peninsula – How many people would be near service? .........................................38 Monterey Bay & Peninsula – Low, Medium and High Scenarios ......................................................39 Regional Service – Existing .............................................................................................................40 Regional Service – Medium Scenario ..............................................................................................41 Regional Service – Low, Medium and High Scenarios .....................................................................42 Service Frequency by MST Line and Time of Day – Existing ...........................................................43 Service Frequency by MST Line and Time of Day – Medium Scenario ............................................44 Service Frequency by MST Line and Time of Day – Low Scenario ..................................................45 Service Frequency by MST Line and Time of Day – High Scenario .................................................46 6 How would this plan make transit more useful? ...............................................47 More people would be near service, and service would be more frequent. ...................................48 Most transit trips would take far less time. ......................................................................................49 Change in Average Travel Times Between 15 Key Locations .........................................................50 Trip Examples - Salinas and Boronda ..............................................................................................51 Trip Examples - Salinas to Monterey ...............................................................................................53 Trip Examples - Monterey Bay & Peninsula .....................................................................................54 Trip Examples - Regional .................................................................................................................57 7 Next Steps ........................................................................................................ 60 Considerations for Network Implementation ..................................................................................61 Project Timeline ..............................................................................................................................62 Appendix A - Summary of Phase 2 Public Outreach Meetings | 3
JARRETT WALKER + ASSOCIATES Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
1 Introduction
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Why does MST’s network of bus lines need a redesign?
Figure 1: Map of MST’s fixed-route network in Monterey and Seaside, with lines color-coded by frequency.
Monterey-Salinas Transit (MST) is consider-
ing significant changes to its bus network in
the course of this study, the Comprehensive
Operational Analysis (COA). These changes are
being proposed in response to:
• An initial assessment of the issues faced
by the existing network, detailed in the
Choices Report1.
• A consultation with stakeholders and
members of the public about their values
and priorities for transit; and conversations
with bus riders about their experiences with
the existing system.
• Direction from the MST Board of Directors’
Operations Performance Committee to
make changes that respond to the concerns
we heard.
The key reasons for change are summarized in
this section.
1. The last full system
review was over two
decades ago.
Many transit agencies review their entire
network every five to ten years, to make sure
service matches the community’s needs. The
last time MST undertook such a comprehen-
sive study was in the late 1990s.
Many changes have taken place in and around
Monterey County since then. But without
consistent policy on where and how much
service to provide, MST has responded sepa-
rately to many individual requests for service.
This approach has helped meet well-identified
needs, but has not always contributed to more
effective service for everyone.
1 The full Choices Report and other materials related to this study can be consulted on MST’s website at http://mst.org/coa
2. Most lines operate at
very low frequencies.
The result is a network of many overlapping
lines, each doing something that someone
requested, but mostly running too infrequently
to be worth the wait for anyone else travelling
in the same direction.
Only two MST lines consistently run every
30 minutes or better on weekdays: Line 41 in
Salinas, and Line 20 from Monterey to Salinas.
Almost everything else runs once an hour or
less2.
In fact, nearly half of MST lines operate once
an hour or less3, connecting small numbers of
people to specific buildings or facilities. These
specialized and very infrequent services tend
to overlap with other lines, resulting in a very
complex web of service. The same trip might
require using different routes at different times
of day, and take very different amounts of
time, regardless of traffic conditions.
This is especially pronounced in the Monterey
and Seaside area shown in Figure 1. Many of
the lines on this map operate less than once
an hour, and have very short unique segments.
Because each line has to operate on its own
schedule, overlapping lines don’t result in
high combined frequency.
For example, there may be four direct buses
per hour between Monterey Transit Plaza and
Del Monte Center on weekdays from 7 AM
to 6 PM. However, during that eleven hour
span, there are at least nine 30-minute gaps
between southbound buses.
2 There are two main exceptions: (a) the JAZZ A and B, which each run every 36 minutes on weekdays, and combine to every 18 minutes on Fremont Blvd., and (b) Line 24 from Monterey to Carmel Valley, which operated every 40 minutes on weekdays until September 2021..
3 As of early 2021, 14 of the 32 MST lines currently in operation run eight times per day or less.
A number of MST lines operate just a few
times per day, connecting small numbers of
people to specific buildings or facilities.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
3. It can take a very long time to get from A to B, even when those places are nearby.
Transit is useful to people when it extends the range of places they can go. But low frequencies mean that few people can use transit to get anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. This is true even when travelling relatively short distances, as in the following examples.
Example: How do you get from Seaside to Pacific Grove?
Let’s imagine you are a retail worker living in the center of Seaside, and you need to reach your job at Country Club Gate Center in Pacific Grove (6 miles away) for the start of your shift at noon on week- days. Here’s what you would need to do:
Notice that this trip includes a total of only 29 minutes actually riding the bus, and that you would spend more time waiting at your destination than you would getting there.
The key problem in this example is the low frequency of Line 2. If Line 2 came every 30 minutes instead of once an hour, this could halve the length of the trip. In that case, you could catch a later Jazz B at 11:15, wait only 10 minutes in Monterey to connect to Line 2 at 11:48, and wait only 6 minutes at the end, for a total of 48 minutes.
Example: How do you get from North Salinas to South Salinas? Let’s imagine you are a hospital worker living near North Salinas High School. You need to reach your job at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital (4.5 miles away) for the start of your shift at 9 AM on week- days. Here’s what you would need to do:
Notice that this trip includes a total of only 21 minutes actually riding the bus, and that you would spend more time waiting at Salinas Transit Center than on either bus. A fit adult could walk from Salinas Transit Center starting at 8:10 AM and arrive at the hospital at the same time as someone who had waited for Line 48. They might even be able to walk the whole way from home.
The key problem in this example is both low frequencies and the lack of a timed transfer at Salinas Transit Center. If Lines 48 and 49 were timed to arrive together at Salinas Transit Center at 8:25 AM and leave together at 8:30 AM, you could leave home 15 minutes later. If they both came every half hour and were timed to leave Salinas Transit Center at 8:15 AM and 8:45 AM, you could leave home 30 minutes later, for a 48 minute trip.
These are just two of many possible
examples. Many prominent destinations are
served once an hour or less, and people
traveling to them by transit would have
similar or even longer trips.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit4. Where people live and
work has changed.
The last 25 years have seen important shifts
in where people live and work. Since the late
1990s:
• The population of the greater Monterey
area and rural areas of the North County
have stagnated.
• Marina experienced a significant decline
in the 2000s, but has had the strongest
growth of any community in Monterey
County in the 2010s and continues to have
the largest number of ongoing residential
development projects.
• Salinas has grown slightly but unevenly. The
population has grown significantly in North
Salinas, while it has tended to decline or
stagnated in East and South Salinas.
• Cities in the Highway 101 corridor south of
Salinas grew strongly in the 2000s, but that
growth slowed down significantly in the
2010s.
• The prominence of the military as a source
of economic development has decreased
following the closure of Fort Ord.
• The agriculture, retail, service, hospital-
ity and higher education sectors have all
become correspondingly more important.
Although some cities on the Monterey
Peninsula are now showing renewed interest
in growth and development, the structure
of existing water rights means that future
growth will likely be concentrated in the
Highway 101 corridor south of Salinas.
Figure 2: Regional map of change in population density. Growth has largely been concentrated in the outer neighborhoods of Salinas and in the cities of Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield and King City.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Figure 4: Map of MST’s fixed-route network in Salinas, with lines color-coded by frequency. All but two lines (20 and 41) operate once an hour or less.
5. There is unmet demand
for service in Salinas.
Salinas is the largest population and job center
in Monterey County, accounting for 36% of the
population and 30% of jobs. There are good
reasons to think many of the trips that happen
in Salinas could be served by transit.
For one, Salinas is relatively compact and
dense. The entire city of 155,000 people fits
in a 5x5 mile area, and a large share of its
jobs are located either Downtown or on long,
straight main streets. As a result:
• Most bus stops in Salinas are located within
a 1/2-mile of several thousand residents.
• Many of the places people need to go can be
reached in a relatively short trip, that could
be effectively served by frequent transit.
Salinas also has a relatively high poverty rate,
implying that many people are in need of
public services, including transportation. Many
people in Salinas live in large households,
where there are often fewer cars than people
who need to go places.
Despite this, large parts of the city are served
by lines that operate once an hour or less.
With such infrequent service, an able bodied
adult can walk most of the way across Salinas
in the time it takes before the next bus comes.
But very few people have the time to do that.
Figure 3: Table comparing the population and ridership in the Monterey and Salinas areas to the amount of MST weekly scheduled in-service hours.
Population Jobs
% MST Service
(Fall 2020)
% MST Ridership
(Fall 2020)
Monterey Bay and Peninsula
(includes Carmel, Del Monte Forest, Pacific
Grove, Monterey, Del Rey Oaks, Seaside, Marina)
27%
(115,000)
28%
(48,000)
52%
(2,000 hours/week)
45%
(13,000/week)
Salinas
(includes Salinas, Boronda)
36%
(157,000)
30%
(51,000)
35%
(1,350 hours/week)
42%
(12,200/week)
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Figure 5: How
MST ridership
changed from
Fall 2019 to Fall
2020, by area
of Monterey
County.
6. The pandemic has
brought more focus onto
equity issues.
Establishing the way out of pandemic-era plan-
ning is another key reason for this study.
during the pandemic, both MST service
levels and ridership declined considerably.
Comparing Fall 2019 to Fall 2020:
• MST reduced service by over 30%.
• Weekday ridership was almost 75% lower,
from over 13,500 to less than 3,700 board-
ings per day on fixed routes.
• Weekend ridership was about 60% lower,
and at par with weekdays. On weekends,
boardings went from about 9,000 board-
ings per day to just under 3,500 per day.
The pandemic especially caused much lower
peak-hour demand. Prior to March 2020, MST
experienced significantly higher ridership on
weekdays between 7:00 AM and 8:00 AM and
between 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM, and provided
a higher level of service in response.
As schools, offices, and many hospitality busi-
nesses either closed or significantly reduced
their operations, rush hour ridership came
down to midday levels. Figure 6 shows that
MST experienced about the same level of rid-
ership from 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM, and no longer
provided additional service at peak hours.
In addition, ridership declines were con-
siderably less steep in areas with many
low-income people of color, suggesting that
a large share of pandemic-era transit riders
have been essential workers.
This is consistent with trends in transit rider-
ship observed throughout California and
nationwide.
As the pandemic evolves
and recedes, it will remain
important to understand
the needs of the people
whose travel purposes
are so essential that they
continued even in a public
health emergency.
Figure 6: How
MST boardings
(left) and total
bus departures
(right) per hour
on weekdays
changed from
Fall 2019 to Fall
2020.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
The Challenge of Planning a Good Transit Network in Monterey County
1. Relatively few people
live in dense parts of cities.
Fixed-route transit relies on the ability and
willingness of strangers to share a vehicle. To
make this possible, several people along any
bus line need to be interested in going to
places the bus is going. To achieve high rider-
ship, you must have many people near bus
lines going to many destinations.
There are people and jobs throughout
Monterey County. But there are very few
places where many people live in close
proximity, or where many jobs are located
in a small area.
Almost all of those places appear shaded in
color on the map in Figure 7, and all of MST’s
most productive lines (in ridership terms) focus
on these areas:
• JAZZ A/B: Monterey-Seaside-Sand City.
• Line 18: Monterey-Seaside-Marina
• Line 20: Salinas-Marina-Sand
City-Seaside-Monterey
• Line 41: East Salinas-Downtown Salinas
• Line 49: North Salinas-Downtown Salinas
With few exceptions1, these are the areas
where a well-funded, well-designed and well-
operated transit system might be expected
to generate high ridership, in the absence
of a global pandemic. Taken together, they
account for only half the population and jobs
of Monterey County.
1 Most notably CSUMB, which does not appear in this map but is a large and growing center between Downtown Marina and Seaside.
Figure 7: Map of combined population and job density in the greater Monterey and Salinas areas.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit2. There is no one
“Downtown.”
Even in a spread-out community, it may
be possible to generate significant transit
ridership if there are places where almost
everybody needs to go on a regular basis.
We can identify these places on a map, by
counting how many jobs are within walking
distance of any point. Offices, retail, hotels,
restaurants, social services, colleges, hospitals
and many other destinations are all places
where there are jobs and where people need
to go. Places where many such destinations
are within walking distance of each other are
natural hubs for transit service.
The map in Figure 8 shows us that the largest
such centers are in Downtown Monterey and
Downtown Salinas. This is why MST builds
most of its service around the Monterey Transit
Plaza and the Salinas Transit Center.
But the map also shows a major challenge
in generating high ridership even with this
design: neither of the county’s two largest
centers account for a large share of county-
wide jobs1.
This reflects what anyone who lives in
Monterey County already knows: there’s no
one “Downtown” where someone could go for
nearly everything they might need.
That means that any successful transit
system in Monterey County needs to
connect the centers of Monterey and
Salinas with a wide variety of smaller desti -
nations that also generate many trips, like
colleges, hospitals, smaller town centers
and suburban shopping centers.
1 There were over 170,000 civilian jobs in Monterey County in 2017.
The most central point in Downtown Monterey was within 1.5 miles of 9,900 jobs (6% of county-wide jobs). The most central point in Downtown Salinas was within 1.5 miles of 14,900 jobs (9% of county- wide jobs).
Figure 8: Regional map showing the number of jobs within walking distance, defined as 1.5 miles, or a 30 minute walk by an able-bodied adult.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit3. A growing number of
people live very far from
the places they need to go.
The places that are growing the fastest are the
places that are the farthest from significant
concentrations of jobs: Marina, and the cities
of Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield and King
City.
Even in a future with fast bus service and more
rail, when so many people live so far away
from the places they need to go, someone
has to pay the price of distance. Distance
must be crossed, which takes time and money
that can’t be spent towards other things
people value. This means:
• More people bear the cost of owning and
maintaining more cars, to access opportu-
nities that might be accessible by transit if
they lived closer in.
• Those who can’t drive or get a ride from a
friend spend hours on transit, and hours
waiting, to cover that distance.
• To serve these often disadvantaged com-
munities more equitably, MST needs to
spend more of its budget on distance,
which means less can be spent on high
frequencies or long hours of service, under-
mining ridership potential.
• A long cascade of social, health, economic
and environmental problems follow.
This network redesign examines ways that
transit access can be increased despite
the high cost of distance. But unless future
housing development can be redirected closer
to where most people work, shop, and access
services, the problems caused by distance will
grow worse, and transit alone will not be the
savior.
Figure 9: Regional map showing the number of people living in locations that are near many jobs (in blue) vs. in locations that are near very few jobs (in red).
The fastest growing
places are far from
jobs and services.
Unless future housing
can be directed
closer to where
people need to go,
the problems caused
by distance will
grow worse. More
MST service to far-
flung places can only
mitigate this issue,
not solve it.
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JARRETT WALKER + ASSOCIATES Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Key Choices in Redesigning the
Network2
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2 K Ey C HOICES IN RE dESIGNING THE N ETWORK
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Ridership vs. Coverage
Figure 10: Comparing an imaginary town where transit is run with the goal of maximizing frequency and ridership (left) vs. the same town where transit is run with the goal of providing a little service near everyone (right). The maximum ridership (left) network has very frequent service, but only on the roads where the most people live and work. The maximum coverage network has service on every road, but it doesn’t come very often.
The MST COA is a unique opportunity to rethink the purpose of Monterey County’s transit system. The most basic choice is the degree to which the transit system should be pursuing ridership or coverage.
What is planning for High Ridership?
Designing a network for high ridership serves several popular goals, including:
• Enabling people to use transit to easily get to many jobs and services. • Minimizing pollution and climate impact by replacing car trips with transit trips. • Limiting the growth of congestion.
• Supporting dense and walkable development.
Prioritizing ridership means buses come more often and are convenient for more trips (higher frequency, longer hours) but are available only in places where many people, jobs and destinations are located.
What is planning for High Coverage?
Designing a transit system for high coverage serves different popular goals:
• Ensuring that as many people as possible have insurance against isolation through access to some transit service, no matter where they live. • Ensuring that every community in the county has some service, even if relatively few people live and work there.
Prioritizing coverage means buses serve as many places as possible, but because they are spread out they don’t come often (once an hour or less) and aren’t conve- nient for many trips.
Why can’t MST do both?
MST can pursue high ridership and extensive coverage at the same time, but the more it pursues one, the less it can provide of the other. Every dollar that is spent providing high frequency along a dense corridor is a dollar that cannot be spent bring- ing transit closer to each person’s home.
At the moment, about 40% of MST fixed-route service is targeted to maximizing ridership, while the remaining 60% is oriented toward coverage.
Should MST focus more on the services likely to generate the highest ridership, or continue to focus on covering as many places as possible?
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2 K Ey C HOICES IN RE dESIGNING THE N ETWORK
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Local vs. Regional Service
Because MST is the transit agency for all
of Monterey County, there will always be a
tension in deciding how much transit service
should be provided for:
• Local trips, mostly in the greater Monterey
and Salinas areas.
• Regional trips connecting all parts of the
county to Salinas, Monterey, Watsonville
and points beyond.
This tension is inevitably bound up in the rider-
ship vs. coverage trade-off, because:
• Longer lines cost more to operate at the
same frequency than shorter lines.
• Longer lines cross large areas where no one
gets on the bus, so they serve fewer riders
for every hour the bus runs.
This means that regional bus service tends to
be more expensive to operate than local lines,
while serving fewer passengers.
This is especially true for MST’s longest lines,
like Line 23 (Salinas to King City); Line 84 (King
City to Paso Robles); or the pre-pandemic lines
to San Jose and Santa Cruz.
The more MST spends on regional service,
the fewer resources are available to
provide lower-cost, higher-ridership lines in
urbanized areas. But if MST did not provide
regional lines to the small towns in south -
ern and northern Monterey County, it is
unlikely anyone else would step in.
Figure 11: Regional map of combined population and job density.
How much of MST’s service should be oriented toward
the greater Salinas urban area vs. the greater Seaside- Monterey urban area vs. regional service?
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2 K Ey C HOICES IN RE dESIGNING THE N ETWORK
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Equality vs. Equity
Should MST focus mostly on the travel needs of
disadvantaged communities, or consider all travel
demand equally regardless of people’s circumstances?
Figure 12: Regional map of the density of people living in households below 150% of the federal poverty line.
Almost everybody needs to go places on a
regular basis. But some people have fewer
choices than others about how to get around.
• People who don’t own cars can’t drive
their car to get around. But this does
not always mean they need transit. Many
people without cars choose to live in a
location where they can walk or bike to
the places they need to go. They may use
transit only occasionally, and even then
they may have other options like a taxi or
ridehailing service like Uber and Lyft.
• Some seniors and people with disabilities
can’t drive, and so they are more likely to
need public transit to get around. Many of
the people who fit this description will also
have difficulty using transit and may require
ADA complementary paratransit (MST
RIDES).
• People with low incomes generally have
fewer choices about where to live, and
whether or not that place is near the places
they need to go. They are less likely to
own a reliable car, and more likely to live in
a household with fewer cars than drivers.
These factors make it more likely that a low-
income person might need to use transit.
But if transit isn’t available or convenient
enough, they are more likely to rely on
friends and family to give them rides, or to
walk or bike very long distances.
In 2014, Monterey County voters decided to
support the transit needs of seniors, veterans
and people with disabilities by paying for extra
transit service. Measure Q collects an 1/8-cent
sales tax that goes to funding six fixed bus
lines and all of the county’s paratransit trips.
But there has been no explicit funding com-
mitment (by voters or otherwise) to prioritize
needs of people with low incomes, who tend
to have the fewest choices about where they
need to go and how to get there.
MST does not currently have the funding
tools to make a commitment comparable to
Measure Q. But MST could decide to prioritize
low-income communities in planning its gen-
eral-public services, particularly for the portion
of services dedicated to coverage.
Would that be the right decision? It depends
on your values.
If you are most interested in universal coverage
with basic transit service, you might not want
to see service to some communities prioritized
over others.
If you are most interested in a system that
maximizes ridership, you might not want to
prioritize service to far-flung and isolated low-
income areas.
Public outreach suggests that such “purist”
views about the ridership vs. coverage trade-
off are rare. Local opinion somewhat favors
a stronger focus on ridership, but over-
whelmingly favors prioritizing the needs of
disadvantaged people and communities in
designing transit service.
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JARRETT WALKER + ASSOCIATES Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
How Public Input Shaped This Plan3
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3 H OW Pu BLIC I NP uT S HAPE d T HIS P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitPhase 1: understanding the Community’s Values and Priorities Initial Outreach Process
In the first half of 2021, MST and the consultant
team conducted outreach to hear the commu-
nity’s opinion on the key choices for the transit
network. A more complete description of this
process is available in the Choices Report and
its appendices. Broadly speaking, we heard
from:
• Stakeholder groups. Small group inter-
views were conducted with over 80
community groups to secure their input
regarding transit needs and priorities.
• Regular MST riders. Nine focus groups
were conducted with English and Spanish-
speaking MST riders to explore their
experiences with and priorities for the transit
network.
• Members of the general public. A sta-
tistically representative survey of 500
households throughout Monterey County
was conducted via telephone, to assess
how the general population believes MST
should allocate services and resources.
The community values
transit for ethical and
practical purposes.
When members of the public were asked
to rate how important it would be for MST
to focus on any of twelve aspects of service
design, a majority considered all of them to be
either “extremely” or “very” important. Very
few consider any of them unimportant.
Simply put, people value public transit, and dif-
ferences of opinion are matters of degree. Also,
they are decisive: almost everyone expressed
an opinion. Very few answered “Not sure.”
The service design aspects that the great-
est percentages of respondents rated as
“extremely important” are of two types:
• Empathetic. Ethically, people feel it
is important to serve those in need
because of age, disability, or lack of a
personal vehicle. These factors were rated
as “extremely important” by the largest
numbers of respondents.
Figure 13: How
Monterey
County
residents rated
the importance
of different
possible
priorities for
MST transit
service in a
phone survey.
12%
14%
14%
15%
18%
23%
25%
25%
26%
26%
34%
41%
45%
40%
46%
49%
48%
49%
58%
53%
57%
50%
56%
52%
0% 1 0% 2 0% 3 0% 4 0% 5 0% 6 0% 7 0% 8 0% 9 0% 10 0%
Special tourist services to reduce traffic congestion
Service to all places, even where few people ride
Support denser, walkable development
Increase overall amount of service
Help reduce the growth of traffic congestion
Transportation to high schools
Transportation to colleges & universities
Routes for people to get to stores and appts
Routes that get workers to places where the most jobs are Help limit air pollution and greenhouse gases
Affordable transportation where many people lack vehicles Routes tailored to needs of elderly and disabled
How important is it for MST to provide....
Extremely important Very important Somewhat important
Not very important Not important at all Not sure
• Instrumental. As a practical matter, service
is important to the extent it is useful.
Specifically, this includes getting people
to jobs, school, and shopping, as well as
reducing pollution/greenhouse gases.
Factors least highly valued are special ser-
vices for tourists and service to all corners of
Monterey County, including places where few
people would use it.
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3 H OW Pu BLIC I NP uT S HAPE d T HIS P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Frequency is more valued
than coverage. Serving
those who need it matters
most.
Broadly speaking, people in Monterey
County appear willing to invest more in
high-frequency services, but only if the
remaining coverage resources are invested
on meeting the needs of high-need groups.
Stakeholder Interviews
Most interviewed stakeholders expressed a
desire for more frequent transit, for reasons
such as:
• “Service workers often have multiple jobs
and need more frequency to make transit a
viable option.”
• “Lack of frequency is a barrier to use.
People would rather get a ride because
transit takes too long.”
• “Frequent transit would open up opportu-
nities for affordable housing grants.”
However, other stakeholders noted that
enhanced convenience for some should not
outweigh access for those who lack transporta-
tion options.
Rider Focus Groups
Among riders, there was broad belief that
if lines ran more often, more people would
ride and that current riders would ride more
often: “People want to ride the bus, if it’s good
enough.”
When asked if they would trade reduced
coverage for increased frequency, many riders
had difficulty choosing frequency uncondition-
ally and offered “hybrid” solutions to avoid the
choice.
• “Frequency on a few well-planned routes
would be better, but please focus on
people who really need the service.”
• “Increase frequency but offer special
services for seniors and persons with
disabilities.”
• “Frequency, but not if it is inequitable.”
Survey Respondents
These views are mirrored in what we
heard from the general public. When asked
directly about the key trade-offs, phone survey
respondents:
• Favored frequent, high-ridership service
(64%) over extensive coverage (35%).
• Favored focusing first on disadvantaged
communities (69%) over treating all commu-
nities equally (30%).
The strength of feeling in favor of service for
those who need it most was even more evident
in questions about which types of service MST
should prioritize: over 90% of respondents
thought that “routes tailored to the need
of the elderly and disabled” and “afford -
able transportation where many people
lack vehicles” were either “extremely” or
“very” important. Figure 14: How Monterey County residents responded to key trade-offs in a phone survey.
Telephone Survey Tradeoffs: Should MST…
Focus on providing service to as many places as
possible, even if that means the bus only comes
every hour or two and most trips take a very long
time?
OR
Focus on providing fast and frequent service, that
comes every 15 minutes and takes the most direct
routes, even if that means transit is only available in the areas where the most people live and work?
Focus on service every 15 minutes in areas with lots
of jobs and schools, so that many people can rely on
buses to get to work or school on time, but that
means some people don't have any service?
OR
Provide service every hour or two throughout the
county, so everyone has a little bus service but very
few people can rely on it to get to work or school on
time?
Focus more on the benefits of fairness to all by
providing at least a little service to everyone in all
communities large and small, even if it is slow and
the bus doesn’t come very often?
OR
Focus more on supporting the local economy by
providing fast and frequent service in the areas
where many people could use it to get to work,
school, shopping and other everyday needs?
Focus first on needs of communities where many
people have low incomes, or don’t have reliable
access to a personal vehicle?
OR
Provide service equally to all communities,
regardless of need, income or access to a personal
vehicle?
69%
30%
35%
64%
65%
27%
72%
33%
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3 H OW Pu BLIC I NP uT S HAPE d T HIS P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitPhase 2: Input Received on the draft Plan Draft Plan Development
The values and priorities expressed by the
public in Phase 1, along with a technical
assessment of the state of MST’s network and
services, were summarized in the Choices
Report, released in May 2021.
Based on the assessment presented in that
report, the MST Board of Directors Operations
Performance Committee directed the project
team in June to develop a network plan that
would:
• Focus a little more on ridership and fre-
quency, and a little less on coverage to as
many places as possible.
• Prioritize the travel needs of people in low-
income communities.
• Shift more service to Salinas and regional
needs.
The project team, in collaboration with repre-
sentatives from local governments, developed
a Draft Plan that was released for public
comment in early September.
Outreach Process
Over the course of September and October,
the team gathered feedback on the Draft Plan
by reaching back out to stakeholders, regular
riders and members of the public through:
• Virtual public meetings held in English and
Spanish, and available on YouTube.
• Three focus group meetings with MST
riders contacted in Phase 1, including two
in English (Peninsula, Salinas and South
County) and one in Spanish (countywide).
• Four stakeholder group meetings, where we
heard from representatives of 30 business,
non-profit and government organizations
located throughout Monterey County.
• An online community survey on the
Draft Plan that received 190 responses.
The survey was provided in English and
Spanish, and was promoted on MST’s
website and social media, through e-mails
to stakeholder groups, and with advertise-
ments at transit centers and on the bus.
Key Comments and
Concerns
The following are recurring comments received
from multiple sources over the course of Phase
2 outreach. A report on all comments received
in meetings is in Appendix A to this report.
Positive comments about increased
frequency, timed transfers, and
shorter travel times.
These elements of the Draft Plan were highly
regarded by stakeholders and riders, if accom-
panied by reduction or elimination of transfer
fares. We heard comments such as “Timed
transfers are an excellent idea,” “The reductions
in travel time will be a huge help for Hartnell
students, particularly [...] from South County”,
and “Increased frequencies will help workers.”
Positive comments about new routes
in Salinas.
The proposed routes to Salinas Adult School,
Natividad Hospital and South Salinas were very
popular in meetings and the survey.
Requests to continue serving Social
Service Agencies near Salinas Airport.
This was the strongest concern about the Draft
Plan in meetings, and the second most fre-
quent concern in the online survey. Route 48
previously served several County social service
departments, including the MCDSS One Stop
Center near Salinas Airport. The Draft Plan
route would require riders to walk ½ mile or
more to reach these facilities.
Desire for restoration of long-distance
services, especially to San Jose.
Restoring service to San Jose was raised in
several meetings, and was the most common
request in the online survey. While advocates
acknowledged that most ridership is very
occasional, they saw it as important to provide
CSUMB students with a link to the Bay Area,
provide access to San Jose airport, connect
to VTA and Caltrain, provide access to higher
paying jobs, and serve regional medical trips.
Other requests for long-distance service
included continuing existing service to Big Sur,
and restoring pre-COVID service to Santa Cruz.
Desire for later service in the evening.
Survey respondents in several areas requested
later service, including in Salinas, Carmel,
Pacific Grove and North County.
Some concern about lack of direct
route from CSUMB to Monterey.
Staff and students at CSUMB expressed some
concern about the lack of a direct route from
CSUMB to downtown Monterey. While they
understood the timed transfer being pro-
posed, they wondered if it would be reliable.
Concerns about safety and sanitation
at transit centers.
The expectation of more transfers heightens
the importance of security and sanitation at
the transfer centers. Concerns about this were
raised in both phases of outreach.
Many questions about how changes
will be communicated.
Stakeholders and riders asked how the Final
Plan would be communicated by MST. Many
stakeholders were eager to help educate their
constituents about revised services, but won-
dered what tools they would have to work with.
CSUMB students and staff were concerned
about how to make the system “less confus-
ing” for students and how to educate them
about MST earlier in their time at CSUMB.
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3 H OW Pu BLIC I NP uT S HAPE d T HIS P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
2. Restore the route to
Social Services in Salinas
In response to strong feedback from the public
and County Social Services employees, the
project team proposes restoring the former
Line 48 as new Line 96, to allow for continued
service to County services at Schilling Place
and La Guardia Drive. This is made possible
with two changes, compared to the Draft Plan.
Fund new Line 96 with Measure Q
resources, replacing old Line 48.
Many of the users with the highest need for
the services on this route are seniors, people
with disabilities and veterans, so it is appropri-
ate to fund this service with Measure Q funds.
However, in an effort to make judicious use of
Measure Q, the new Line 96 would operate
on weekdays only, at the hours when County
social services and most medical services on
Abbott Street are open.
For now, maintain existing Line 47 as
the shuttle between the Hartnell main
campus and Hartnell-Alisal.
In the Draft Plan, Hartnell-Alisal would have
been connected to transit with a redesigned
Line 48. In the absence of this change, the
most practical way to continue service to this
location is to maintain the existing Line 47
service between the two Hartnell campuses.
However, Line 47 is included in the Medium
Scenario and not the Low Scenario of the
Final Plan. This is to indicate that depending
on future resource constraints, MST may
not be able to justify continued operation
of this route using general funds. Line 47
serves a very specific campus-to-campus need
and is duplicative over much of its path with
the more frequent Line 41.
The project team presented the Draft Plan
and public comments to the Operations
Performance Committee. Based on discussion
with the committee, the following actions were
taken.
1. Maintain the Draft Plan’s
improvements to service
The generally positive reception for the plan
motivated the project team to maintain its key
and most popular elements.
Keep the increased frequencies in
general, timed transfers and added
service in Salinas.
These elements are key to all of the positive
outcomes generated by the plan, and will
make MST service useful to more people on a
day-to-day basis. However, the ability to main-
tain these elements while remaining within
MST’s expected financial resources, means that
MST would not be able to respond to some
requests.
No restored long-distance services
(e.g. San Jose).
Within the resources available in the Medium
Scenario, restoring long-distance routes would
require reducing proposed service somewhere
else, most likely in Salinas or South County.
Based on the popularity of new routes and
higher frequency in Salinas and South County,
the project team judged that it would be pref-
erable to maintain these improvements rather
than to restore former long-distance routes.
However, as in the Draft Plan, the High
Scenario includes a proposed route to Gilroy,
connecting to VTA and Caltrain services to the
Bay Area.
No change in service hours.
The Final Plan would generally maintain the
hours proposed for service in the Draft Plan.
Although MST understands the need for more
late evening service, current resource con-
straints mean that improving evening service
would have to come at the cost of reducing
service levels in the daytime.
Public input received during Phase 1 sug-
gested that this would not be acceptable to
most community members. Planning the High
Scenario also showed that even with increased
funds, it is difficult to justify increases in
evening service while providing adequate
frequencies for daytime needs.
Keep service from CSUMB to
Downtown Monterey more frequent,
even if it requires a transfer.
Within the resources available in the Medium
Scenario, direct service from CSUMB to
Downtown Monterey would only operate every
60 minutes, instead of every 30. Given the
popularity of increased frequencies, the team
preferred to maintain higher frequency, and to
minimize wait time at the first and last bus stop.
However, the issue of transfer reliability shows
the importance of correctly scheduling Routes
17 , 18 and 20. The project team re-checked
that anticipated runtimes would make the
timed transfer at Sand City possible. This
will required continued attention throughout
the implementation phase and once the new
network is up and running.
In the High Scenario, Route 20 would operate
every 15 minutes, and would connect with a
shuttle service every 15 minutes to CSUMB
from a stop in Marina. These higher frequen-
cies (which rely on additional resources not
currently available) would make transfers con-
venient even if they are not perfectly timed.
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JARRETT WALKER + ASSOCIATES Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
4 Key Elements of the Plan
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4 K Ey E LEMENTS OF THE P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitPolicy direction
Equality vs. Equity
Direction: Prioritize the travel needs
of people in low-income communities.
MST’s existing coverage-oriented service
consists of routes operating once an hour or
less in a mix of suburban, small town and rural
areas at all income levels.
The policy direction is to more specifically
orient coverage service to meet the needs of
low-income communities.
In practice, this means:
• Ensuring coverage is maintained in low-
income areas, even though the overall
share of coverage-related service will
decline. The corollary to this is reducing or
eliminating coverage in some affluent but
very isolated or low-density areas.
• Maintaining coverage to key public and
community services used by low-income
people, even if those are located in areas
that are otherwise affluent.
• Eliminating symbolic coverage to far-flung
areas where the bus can only ever serve
extremely small numbers of people.
Local vs. Regional
Direction: Shift more service to
Salinas and to regional needs.
MST’s existing balance of service provides
about:
• 50% of service in the greater Seaside-
Monterey urban area.
• 35% in the greater Salinas area.
• 15% in the rest of the county.
The policy direction is to rebalance service
to provide about:
• 40% of service in the greater Seaside-
Monterey urban area
• 40% in the greater Salinas area
• 20% in the rest of the county
This balance is closer to the share of regional
population and jobs, while acknowledging that
an MST bus line is not the best tool to serve
most isolated rural areas, or most agricultural
jobs.
Increased service in Salinas would largely
be reflected in higher frequencies, while the
increase in regional service would enable
service increases in the Highway 101 corridor
between Salinas and King City.
Ridership vs. Coverage
Direction: Focus a little more on
Ridership, and a little less on Coverage.
MST’s current balance of service tilts slightly
toward coverage. We estimate that about 40%
of existing service is ridership-oriented, while
60% is coverage-oriented.
The policy direction is to move MST’s future
service more toward ridership, and less toward
coverage. Accordingly, this plan would orient
about 60% of service toward ridership, and
40% toward coverage.
In practice, this means:
• Increasing the number of lines that
provide service every 30 minutes or
better, including in some locations every
15 minutes or better.
• Reducing the number of deviations that
MST’s bus lines make along the way. This
allows service to be as direct as possible to
every destination along the route, but will
require some passengers to walk a little bit
further to and from their bus stops.
• Eliminating some of MST’s very infre-
quent lines, especially if they operate in
areas with very low population and jobs
nearby.
Despite the reduced share of coverage-
oriented service, this plan would provide MST
bus service within a half-mile of more people
than the existing network. That is largely a
result of the ways in which coverage service
would be redistributed.
After reviewing the trade-
offs involved and the
input received from the
public, the MST Board
of Directors’ Operations
Performance Committee
has provided the following
direction.
These principles were
the basis for proposed
changes to the MST bus
network in the Draft
Network Plan, and have
been maintained in the
Final Plan.
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4 K Ey E LEMENTS OF THE P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Resource Level Annual MST
Service Hours **
Change from
existing
(FY21)
Change from
pre-pandemic
(FY19)***
Low Scenario
Assumes either general fund sources recover very slowly from the pandemic, or insufficient workforce available to operate at full capacity, or both. 163,000 - 3.7% -10.4%
Medium Scenario - Most Likely
Matches MST's budget and workforce targets for FY 2022-2023. 176,000 + 4.0% -3.3%
High Scenario
Assumes voters pass a new sales tax including 1/8-cent for service increases, or another similarly-sized new source of funding appears.
228,000 + 34.7% +25.3%
MST COA - Three Funding Scenarios
General Fund Service Only *
* Includes service funded by local taxpayers through the California Local Transportation Fund (LTF), and other state and federal funding sources. Measure Q services are additional and would continue at similar levels.
Services paid for by institutions (e.g. Monterey Trolley, on-campus routes at CSUMB, routes to military bases) are additional and not included in this network study. ** Service hours MST's budget could support if MST directly operated all of its bus lines. MST tends to directly operate routes that require full-sized buses. Routes with smaller buses are often operated by a private contractor at a lower cost. Actual designed levels of service in each scenario are about 10% higher as a result, matching MST's current practice of assigning ~25% of service to the contractor. *** In addition to the losses in general fund service, about 25% of MST's service prior to 2020 was paid for by the military. Military funding for service is not currently expected to return.
Timeline and Funding Scenarios
Timeline: Fall 2022
Following on the release of the Draft Plan,
Phase 2 of public input, and the incorporation
of feedback into the plan, this project team is
proposing this Final Plan for adoption by MST’s
Board of Directors in February 2022.
Because this plan would propose substantial
changes in service, MST expects it will take
several months before it is fully implemented.
The current operator shortage in particular
poses a barrier to swift implementation of the
Medium Scenario. At this time, the expecta-
tion is that the redesigned network will be fully
operational by late 2022.
Funding Scenarios
As a result, this plan assumes that the rede-
signed network is most likely to operate
with MST’s resources for Fiscal year 20231,
also called the Medium Scenario. Because
future circumstances remain uncertain, this
plan also includes contingencies for what to do
with different resource levels:
• The Low Scenario is a contingency to
define what might need to be cut if either
(a) MST’s funding sources recover more
slowly than expected from the pandemic,
or (b) MST is not able to hire and retain
enough drivers to operate at full capacity2.
• The High Scenario is for future growth.
Funding for this growth could come from
a new sales tax similar to Measure Q, or
another funding source coming out of new
state or federal programs.
1 MST plans its budget according to fiscal years that start on July 1.
FY 2023 starts on July 1, 2022 and ends on June 30, 2023. 2 Transit agencies nationwide, including MST, have suffered from driver hiring and retention issues since pre-pandemic times.
Figure 15: Table detailing expected resources available for bus lines operated with MST general funds in the Low, Medium and High funding scenarios.
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4 K Ey E LEMENTS OF THE P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitExisting vs. Future Network Maps – Existing Figure 16: The existing regional transit network with routes color-coded by midday frequency.
The maps on this page represent MST’s exist-
ing bus lines. On these maps, each line’s color
represents how often the bus operates on
weekdays.
The vast majority (~85%) of MST’s fixed-route
service is operated in the greater Seaside-
Monterey and Salinas area (Figure 17). The
remaining ~15% includes MST’s regional lines
(Figure 16).
Three lines stand out for their frequency. These
are the only services that usually run every 35
minutes or better.
o Line 41, connecting East Salinas to
Downtown Salinas and Northridge.
o The JAZZ A and JAZZ B, between
Monterey and Seaside.
o Line 20 from Salinas to Monterey.
All of MST’s other lines operate once an hour
or less. These tend to have long and circuitous
routings, with many deviations, intended to
maximize the area covered by bus service.
On some lines, the bus follows a different
route at different times of day. Not shown on
these maps is the tendency for each line to
have a specific timetable, with different start-
ing and ending hours.
Figure 17: The existing transit network in the Monterey-Salinas area, with routes color-coded by midday frequency.
Reading the Maps
Throughout this report, maps show bus
lines color-coded by midday frequency
on weekdays.
• Red lines run about every 15 minutes.
• Blue lines run about every 30 minutes.
• Green lines run about once an hour.
• Gold lines run less than once an hour.
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4 K Ey E LEMENTS OF THE P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitExisting vs. Future Network Maps – Medium Scenario Figure 18: The Medium Scenario regional transit network with routes color-coded by midday frequency.
The maps on this page reflect the level of
service MST expects to operate in 2022 and
2023. In this scenario:
• Half of MST’s bus lines would run every
15 to 30 minutes. In addition to Lines 20,
41 and the JAZZ, this would include most
of the lines operating in Salinas, and service
every 30 minutes to Carmel-by-the-Sea,
Downtown Pacific Grove, and CSUMB.
• This is in part because most of the infre-
quent bus lines in the Peninsula would be
grouped into fewer straighter lines.
• Increased regional service would mostly be
allocated to service every hour on Line 23
from Salinas to King City. MST would also
replace general public on-call service with
local circulators running every 30 minutes in
Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield and King City.
• Hours of service would be consistent
across the system. Main routes would
operate from 6 AM to 10 PM (9 PM on
weekends), and most smaller routes from 7
AM to 7 PM, as shown on page 28.
• Timed transfers would facilitate easy,
consistent connections between routes
that run every 30 to 60 minutes at key loca-
tions, as shown on page 29.
Figure 19: The Medium Scenario transit network in the Monterey-Salinas area, with routes color-coded by midday frequency.
The Medium Scenario is
the most likely scenario.
It is in effect “the plan,”
barring unforeseen
circumstances.
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4 K Ey E LEMENTS OF THE P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitExisting vs. Future Network Maps – Low Scenario Figure 20: The Low Scenario regional transit network with routes color-coded by midday frequency.
The Low Scenario is a
contingency plan in case
MST revenues or bus driver
availability were lower than
expected.
Figure 21: The Low Scenario transit network in the Monterey-Salinas area, with routes color-coded by midday frequency.
The maps on this page reflect the level of
service MST would operate if the agency
needed to implement the Final Plan with an
8% reduction in service compared to current
expectations. In this scenario:
• In the greater Seaside-Monterey area,
service would be similar to the Medium
Scenario, but more frequent lines would
end service an hour earlier in the evening.
• Service in Salinas would be a mix of routes
operating every 15, 30, and 60 minutes.
This would only be marginally more fre-
quent than it is today.
• There would be fewer gains and some
losses to regional service. There would be
no service to the Carmel Valley, and Line
23 would operate every 90 minutes on
average during weekdays.
• Timed transfers would facilitate connections
between routes that operate every 30 to
60 minutes at Monterey Transit Plaza, Sand
City Station and Salinas Transit Center.
The decision to implement the Low Scenario
rather than the Medium Scenario may depend
largely on the timing of new operator hiring.
MST may need to make a
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4 K Ey E LEMENTS OF THE P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitExisting vs. Future Network Maps – High Scenario Figure 22: The High Scenario regional transit network with routes color-coded by midday frequency.
The High Scenario
represents what MST
could do if voters passed
an 1/8-cent sales tax for
increased general service.
Figure 23: The High Scenario transit network in the Monterey-Salinas area, with routes color-coded by midday frequency.
The maps on this page reflect what MST could
provide if it received substantial new funding,
equivalent in scale to another 1/8-cent sales tax
for increased service. In this scenario:
• Most of Salinas and much of the greater
Seaside-Monterey area would have bus
lines operating every 15 minutes or
better. This would include Line 41 (Alisal-
Northridge), Line 49 (North Main), and Line
47 (South Main/Romie Ln.) in Salinas; Line 20
connecting Monterey, Seaside, Marina, and
Salinas; the shared segments of the JAZZ A
and B lines between Monterey and Seaside;
and Line 15, a new shuttle between CSUMB
and Line 20.
• Regional service would remain as in the
Medium Scenario, but with the addition of
a new route to Gilroy, connecting to the
Bay area via Caltrain and Santa Clara
Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)
bus lines.
• Timed transfers would remain as in the
Medium Scenario for routes operating every
30 to 60 minutes. But the importance of timed
transfers would decline, since more trips could
rely on frequent connections between routes
operating every 15 minutes or better.
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4 K Ey E LEMENTS OF THE P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
15 30 60 ●
5 AM
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
PM
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
PM
5 AM
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
PM
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
PM
Jazz A/B Aquarium-Sand City 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Jazz A Sand City via Hilby 60 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Jazz B Sand City via Broadway 60 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 1 Pacific Grove-Monterey 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Two-way loop past Downtown PG 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 2 Monterey - Carmel 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 7 Ryan Ranch-Monterey 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 8 Monterey-CHOMP 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Longline to CHOMP, Carmel, Del Mesa ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 17/18 Sand City-Marina 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 17 Sand City-Marina via CSUMB 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 18 Sand City-Marina via Monterey Rd 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 20 Monterey-Salinas 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 23 Salinas-King City 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 24 Carmel Valley 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 25X Salinas-CSUMB (in-session only) 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 28 Watsonville - Castroville - Salinas ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 29 Watsonville - Prunedale - Salinas ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 31 Gonzales Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 32 Soledad Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 33 Greenfield Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 34 King City Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 41 Salinas-Alisal 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Longline to Northridge 30 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 43 Salinas TC - Romie Lane 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 44 Salinas TC - Boronda 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 45 Salinas TC - Sanborn Road 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 46 Salinas TC - Natividad 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 47 Salinas TC - Hartnell East Alisal 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 49 Salinas TC - North Main 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Longline to Bolsa Knolls 30 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 61 Veteran's Shuttle ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 84 King City-Paso Robles ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 94 Sand City-Carmel ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
95 Williams Ranch-Northridge ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 96 Airport Business Center 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Limited (8 trips
or less per day)
Proposed MST Bus Line Frequencies - Medium Scenario
The bus comes about every:
WEEKDAYS WEEKEND
15 minutes
or better
30 minutes 60 minutes
Higher frequencies and more consistent hours.
To make service more convenient and legible, this
plan would organize almost all MST bus lines into
three categories based on their weekday midday
frequency:
• Lines that run every 15 minutes.
• Lines that run every 30 minutes.
• Lines that run every 60 minutes.
The most frequent lines would operate every 15
minutes from 7 AM to 6 PM on weekdays. Service
on these frequent lines would continue every 30
minutes or better after 6 PM and on weekends.
In the Low and Medium Scenarios, these would include:
• Line 41 (Salinas-Alisal)
• Line 49 (Salinas-North Main)
• Shared segments of the Jazz A and B (Aquarium
- Seaside)
In the High Scenario, this would also include Line 15
(SURF-CSUMB Shuttle), Line 20 (Monterey-Salinas),
and Line 47 (Salinas-Romie Lane).
Most urban lines would operate every 30 minutes
or better from 7 AM to 6 PM on weekdays. Service
on these lines would continue every 60 minutes or
better after 6 PM and on weekends.
This includes routes connecting to major destinations
including Natividad Hospital, CSUMB, downtown
Pacific Grove, and downtown Carmel-by-the-Sea.
In the Low Scenario, frequent and main lines would
end service an hour earlier, at 9 PM on weekdays and
8 PM on weekends.
Most other lines (including most regional lines)
would operate every 60 minutes or better, from 7
AM to 7 PM, seven days a week. Note that Line 23
(Salinas-King City) would have slightly longer hours,
and that Lines 28 and 29 would each run every 120
minutes, but combine to service every 60 minutes
between Salinas and Watsonville.
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4 K Ey E LEMENTS OF THE P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitTimed transfers for faster local and regional travel.
Existing Service
The existing MST network features several
transfer points, where passengers can connect
between several incoming bus lines. But
because most lines operate on unique fre-
quencies, have different lengths, and operate
from different start and end points, there are
very few timed transfers. This means cus-
tomers end up waiting a long time.
Furthermore, MST customers are discouraged
from transferring by the requirement to pay a
new full fare every time they change buses.
Proposed Final Network
Figure 24 shows how this would change under
the Medium Scenario of this plan.
Nearly every MST bus line in the proposed
network would either:
• Run every 15 minutes or better, meaning it
is always relatively easy to connect to this
line, since the next bus is always coming
soon (on average, in 7.5 minutes).
• Arrive at Monterey Transit Plaza or Salinas
Transit Center at :10 and :40 after the hour,
if it runs every 30 minutes.
• Arrive at Monterey Transit Plaza or Salinas
Transit Center at :10 after the hour, if it runs
every 60 minutes.
Buses would then leave Monterey Transit Plaza
and Salinas Transit Center at :15 and :45 after
the hour, ensuring a maximum 5 minute wait
to connect between most routes. Additional
timed transfers would also be available at Sand
City Station (to CSUMB) and Carmel Rancho
(to Carmel Valley).
Figure 24: Diagram of the timed transfer system in the Medium Scenario.
Important note: under MST’s current fare structure, each transfer requires passengers to pay a second fare. This plan assumes MST will change fares so transfers are either free or significantly discounted.
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4 K Ey E LEMENTS OF THE P LAN
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitService that is more direct, and less specialized.
Existing Service
Figure 25 (below left) shows MST’s existing service in the core of the Seaside-Monterey urban area.
Many of the bus lines shown on this map overlap for long segments, deviating here and there to get service closer to a particular street or building. The light green and gold colors of these lines indicate almost all the routes shown here operate once an hour or less. As a result, many locations are acces- sible by more than one line, but at totally random frequencies that vary widely throughout the day.
For example, Del Monte Center is served by nine bus lines, each one of which has a slightly differ- ent path than the others to Monterey Transit Plaza and Carmel-by-the-Sea. But despite these many routes, a passenger can only rely on a trip to central Monterey or Carmel about every 30 minutes, and that trip could take one of several different routes along the way.
Figure 25: Existing MST bus lines in the core of the Seaside-Monterey area. Figure 26: Proposed MST bus lines in the core of the Seaside-Monterey area in the Medium Scenario.
Proposed Final Plan
Figure 26 (below right) shows how service would change under the Medium Scenario. Even though the plan would include fewer routes and slightly less service overall in the Seaside-Monterey area, many places would have more frequent service.
This is because consolidating service into fewer lines makes it possible to run a regular schedule between major destinations, so a passenger can know that the next bus is always scheduled in the same amount of time, and will take the route they used last time.
In this example, Del Monte Center would only be near three bus lines, but a passenger could still count on service to central Monterey or Carmel-by-the-Sea every 30 minutes. Furthermore, that pas- senger would always use the same bus line, along the most direct path from Carmel to Monterey. | 31
JARRETT WALKER + ASSOCIATES Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
5 Existing vs. Proposed Service
by Area
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5 Ex ISTING VS . P ROPOSE d S ERVICE B y A REA
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Salinas – Existing Service
Line 41 is the only
local route with service
running consistently every
15 to 30 minutes. It oper-
ates between Downtown,
Alisal and Northridge, con-
necting Salinas’ densest
neighborhoods to its largest
destinations.
As a result, Line 41 is useful
for many trips and generates
relatively high ridership.
There are three bus lines on North Main Street,
but the bus usually comes only once an hour (on
Line 49). When Line 29 is in operation, there is a
second bus every other hour. Line 95 only runs four
times a day, and only in the southbound direction.
Most bus lines operate
once an hour or less.
Services like Line 44 and
Line 45 cover many outly-
ing neighborhoods, but
the bus only comes every
75 minutes, which makes
them very difficult to use.
For an able-bodied person,
it’s often faster to walk than
wait for the next bus.
South Main Street and Romie Lane are served
just a few times a day by Measure Q routes primar-
ily targeted for the needs of seniors, veterans, and
people with disabilities (Lines 61 and 95).
That leaves many jobs, residents and important desti-
nations a long walk from consistently usable service.
Line 48 is the only all-day local
service in South Salinas. Its routing
is designed to provide access to
social service agencies that have
been placed in isolated locations at
the edge of industrial areas, the 101
freeway, and Salinas Airport.
Salinas is connected to the
rest of the region by Lines 20
(Monterey), 23 (King City), 28
and 29 (Watsonville), and 61
(Marina-VA Clinic)
Reading the Maps
The maps on this and the following page
depict how MST bus lines are currently
organized in Salinas, and how that would
change if this plan were implemented.
These maps are annotated with comments
that explain how the existing network
operates, and how that would change in
the future.
As in the rest of this report, maps show
bus lines color-coded by midday fre-
quency on weekdays.
• Red lines run about every 15 minutes.
• Blue lines run about every 30 minutes.
• Green lines run about once an hour.
• Gold lines run less than once an hour.
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5 Ex ISTING VS . P ROPOSE d S ERVICE B y A REA
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitSalinas – Medium Scenario
Line 41 would remain
mostly similar to existing
service. It would operate
every 15 minutes a few more
hours on weekdays (7 AM to
6 PM), and every 30 minutes
on weekends.
Line 49 would be upgraded to provide service every 15 minutes from downtown to Northridge, with service every 30 minutes continuing to Santa Rita. This would provide frequent service in Salinas’ second densest corridor, with many people and jobs nearby.
Most of Salinas would
be served every 15 to
30 minutes, with timed
transfers at Salinas Transit
Center.
This would make it possible
to travel across town in any
direction with just a short
wait for a second bus.
South Main Street and Romie Lane would have
all-day service every 30 minutes on a new Line 43.
Combined with timed transfers at Salinas Transit Center, this would connect many jobs, residents and important
destinations in this area to the rest of Salinas by transit.
Line 96 would go to the same areas the
existing Line 48 goes, on weekdays only.
Reading the Maps
As in the rest of this report, this map
shows bus lines color-coded by midday
frequency on weekdays.
• Red lines run about every 15 minutes.
• Blue lines run about every 30 minutes.
• Green lines run about once an hour.
• Gold lines run less than once an hour.
How Timed Transfers Would Work
Timed transfers would make it possible
to connect from one bus line to another
without a long wait.
Blue lines would arrive at Salinas Transit
Center at :10 and :40 minutes after the
hour, and leave at :15 and :45.
Green lines would arrive at Salinas Transit
Center :10 minutes after the hour, and
leave at :15.
Lines 28 and 29 would alternate, but
there would always be a departure to
Watsonville at :15 after the hour as well.
Red Lines would not have a timed transfer,
but the next bus would be scheduled to
always come within 15 minutes. In practice,
most passengers connecting to and from
red lines at Salinas Transit Center would
experience a 5 to 10 minute wait. On
evenings and weekends, red lines would
function like blue lines.
Salinas would remain
connected to the rest of
the region by Lines 20
(Monterey), 23 (King City),
28 and 29 (Watsonville),
and 61 (Marina-VA Clinic),
but local and regional
connections would be
facilitated by timed
transfers.
A direct route to the
CSuMB campus would
also be reinstated as
Line 25x, with service
once an hour when
classes are in session*.
Line 23 would become much more frequent,
operating once an hour to and from King City.
Line 23 would also remain on Highway 101 coming
into Salinas, allowing for faster travel to and from
cities in the Highway 101 corridor. However, it
would terminate at Salinas Transit Center instead
of continuing to Hartnell College.
A new Line 46 would
serve Natividad Hospital
and Salinas Adult School
every 30 minutes from
downtown Salinas,
making those destinations
reachable from across the
region.
Line 45 would be shortened,
so that it could operate every
60 minutes instead of every 75
minutes. It would no longer serve
Boronda Road to Northridge.
Line 47 would run every 60 minutes between
Hartnell’s main campus and its Alisal campus. This
is a continuation of a service MST began in mid-
2021. It is not included in the Low Scenario.
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5 Ex ISTING VS . P ROPOSE d S ERVICE B y A REA
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Salinas – How many people would be near service?
Existing Service
Figure 27 (below left) shows how many Salinas residents and jobs are located within a half- mile walk of a stop on an existing MST bus line, and the level of service available on the most frequent route at that stop.
• 77% of Salinas residents and 61% of jobs in Salinas are near an existing MST bus line, regardless of how often that bus line runs.
• But only 44% of Salinas residents and 29% of jobs are located near service that runs about every 30 minutes or better. Most Salinas residents are near either very infrequent service, or no service at all.
• Among residents in poverty, 41% live near service every 15 minutes or better, and 55% live near service every 30 minutes or better. This is almost all related to Line 41, from Downtown to Alisal to Northridge.
Proposed Final Network
Figure 28 (below right) shows the same information, if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented.
• The total number of Salinas residents and jobs near an MST bus line would increase slightly, to 80% of residents (+3%) and 66% of jobs (+5%). • The number of Salinas residents and jobs near service every 30 minutes or better would increase to 66% of residents (+22%) and 54% of jobs (+25%). • 50% of residents in poverty would be near service every 15 minutes or better (+9%). • 74% of residents in poverty would live near service every 30 minutes or better (+19%).
Figure 27: Chart showing the percentage of Salinas residents and jobs within a half-mile walk of existing MST bus lines.
Figure 28: Chart showing the percentage of Salinas residents and jobs that would be within a half- mile walk of MST bus lines in the Medium Scenario.
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5 Ex ISTING VS . P ROPOSE d S ERVICE B y A REA
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitSalinas – Low, Medium and High Scenarios Low Scenario
The Low Scenario is a contingency plan to help define
how MST would react to either (a) lower revenues than
expected or (b) an insufficient number of drivers to
operate the Medium Scenario (or some other unexpected
resource constraint). In the Low Scenario, proposed
service would be similar to the Medium Scenario, except for the following changes:
• Red and blue lines would end service an hour earlier
in the evening, at 9 PM on weekdays and 8 PM on
weekends.
• Lines 43 and 44 would operate once an hour instead
of every 30 minutes.
• MST would not operate direct service from Salinas to
CSUMB on the new Line 25X, nor the shuttle between
Hartnell campuses on Line 47.
Medium Scenario
The Medium Scenario would operate as described in
previous pages. The map below is provided for reference and comparison purposes.
Reading the Maps
As in the rest of this report, the maps on
this page show bus lines color-coded by
midday frequency on weekdays.
• Red lines run about every 15 minutes.
• Blue lines run about every 30 minutes.
• Green lines run about once an hour.
• Gold lines run less than once an hour.
High Scenario
The High Scenario is designed to show where and how
much MST could increase service if a new funding source appeared in the future. The most likely source for new
funds would be a new countywide 1/8-cent sales tax, if
voters were to approve. In the High Scenario, proposed
service would be similar to the Medium scenario, except for the following changes:
• Line 20, Line 47 , and the northern half of Line 41 would all be upgraded to run every 15 minutes.
• Line 46 would be extended northward from Natividad
Hospital to Boronda Road and Northridge Mall.
• There would be a new Line 59 to Gilroy, running every 90 minutes and connecting to VTA and Caltrain.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Monterey Bay & Peninsula – Existing
Reading the Maps
The maps on this and the following page
depict how MST bus lines are currently
organized in the greater Seaside-Monterey
urban area, and how that would change if
this plan were implemented.
These maps are annotated with comments
that explain how the existing network
operates, and how that would change in
the future.
As in the rest of this report, maps show
bus lines color-coded by midday fre-
quency on weekdays.
• Red lines run about every 15 minutes.
• Blue lines run about every 30 minutes.
• Green lines run about once an hour.
• Gold lines run less than once an hour.
Lines 1 and 2 cover
Pacific Grove every 60
minutes on long and very
circuitous paths. These
routes maximize cover-
age, but also ensure that
any transit trip beginning
or ending in Pacific Grove
requires a long wait.
Line 20 provides a regional connection
every 30 minutes between Monterey,
Sand City, Marina and Salinas. This is MST’s
highest-ridership regional route, by far.
Service to CSuMB and parts of
Marina is provided by two MST bus
lines. Both operate once an hour.
Line 16 connects parts of Marina and
student housing to the main campus.
Line 18 connects Monterey, Seaside and
Marina every 60 minutes along a path
that duplicates much of the Jazz routes
and Line 20.
Pre-pandemic, MST operated other lines
(19, 25, 26) under contract to CSUMB.
The Jazz A and B routes
operate every 30 to 35
minutes, connecting Seaside
to downtown Monterey and
Cannery Row. This is a criti-
cal connection between areas
where many low-income people
live, and where many jobs and
services are located.
Many very infrequent routes overlap in the hills above Monterey, and in between Monterey and Carmel-by-the-Sea. The complexity of service compensates for challenging pedestrian environments by providing bus stops to many isolated locations. However, for riders, this tends to mean time spent researching the best route as well as a very long wait.
Carmel-by-the-Sea is connected
to Monterey by multiple MST bus
lines, but they all run at different
frequencies and have different end-
points. So even though there might
be 3 buses per hour, there is often 30
to 40 minutes between buses.
Specialized commuter routes like Line
11 (Carmel) and Line 21 (Pebble Beach)
provide fast service, but they run just a few
times a day in the morning and afternoon.
These are only useful for workers with very
specific commute hours, who are also
heading straight home after work.
MST also currently offers an
on-call service for trips within
Marina. This service is available
to the general public from 8 AM
to 6 PM, seven days a week.
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5 Ex ISTING VS . P ROPOSE d S ERVICE B y A REA
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Monterey Bay & Peninsula – Medium Scenario
Reading the Maps
As in the rest of this report, this map
shows bus lines color-coded by midday
frequency on weekdays.
• Red lines run about every 15 minutes.
• Blue lines run about every 30 minutes.
• Green lines run about once an hour.
• Gold lines run less than once an hour.
How Timed Transfers Would Work
Timed transfers would make it possible
to connect from one bus line to another
without a long wait.
At Monterey Transit Plaza:
• Blue lines would arrive at :10 and :40
minutes after the hour, and leave at :15
and :45.
• Green lines would arrive at :10 minutes
after the hour, and leave at :15.
• Red Lines would not have a timed
transfer, but the next bus would be
scheduled to always come within 15
minutes. In practice, most passengers
connecting to and from red lines would
experience a 5 to 10 minute wait. On
evenings and weekends, red lines
would function like blue lines.
At Sand City Station, Lines 17 and 18
would be scheduled to arrive 3 minutes
before and leave 3 minutes after Line 20.
At Carmel Rancho, Lines 2 and 24 would
both arrive at :40 minutes after the hour
and leave at :45.
Service in Pacific Grove would
be consolidated into a single
Line 1, with service every 30
minutes between Monterey and
Downtown Pacific Grove. It would
then split into a two-way loop to
serve the rest of the city. There
would no longer be service on Del
Monte Blvd. or 17 Mile Dr.
Line 20 would continue to provide
the main regional connection between
Monterey, Sand City, Marina and Salinas.
The Jazz lines would combine
to 15 minute frequency from
Cannery Row to south Seaside,
with each branch (A and B) running
every 30 minutes. This would be
made possible by keeping Jazz A on
Fremont Blvd. at Monterey Peninsula
College (MPC). Some MPC students
and staff would have longer walks,
but many more passengers would
benefit from the more direct routing,
and all passengers would benefit
from the higher frequency.
The complex web of routes in the hills above Monterey would be replaced by three main lines operating at least once an hour. Some areas where the bus runs just a few times a day would lose service.
• Line 2 would connect Monterey to Carmel-by-the-Sea every 30 minutes. • Line 7 would connect Downtown Monterey to Monterey Airport and Ryan Ranch every 60 minutes.
• Line 8 would connect Downtown Monterey to Glenwood and CHOMP via Del Monte Center every 60 minutes.
Carmel-by-the-Sea would be
served primarily by Line 2,
with service every 30 minutes
to Monterey.
An extension of the new Line 8
would also provide senior-ori-
ented service every two hours
in Carmel-by-the-Sea and the
Carmel Valley, replacing existing
Lines 91 and 92.
Peak-hour only express
service like Line 11 (Seaside-
Carmel) and Line 21
(Salinas-Pebble Beach) would
no longer be provided.
CSuMB would be connected to
Marina and Sand City/Seaside every
30 minutes. This would be through a
combination of two hourly routes with
staggered schedules.
Lines 17 and the new Line 18 would
connect Sand City, CSUMB and
Marina via two paths serving differ-
ent areas of north Seaside and South
Marina in old Fort Ord.
Access to Lines 17 and 18 would be
facilitated by a timed transfer to and
from Line 20 at Sand City Station.
Marina on-call
service would no
longer be provided.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Monterey Bay & Peninsula – How many people would be near service? Existing Service
Figure 29 (below left) shows how many residents and jobs in the greater Seaside-Monterey urban area are located within a half-mile walk of a stop on an existing MST bus line, and the level of service available on the most frequent route at that stop. • 68% of residents and jobs in the greater Seaside-Monterey urban area are near an existing MST bus line, regardless of how often that bus line runs. • But only 39% of residents and 41% of jobs in the greater Seaside-Monterey urban area are located near service that runs about every 30 minutes or better. Most residents are either near very infrequent service, or no service at all.
• Among residents in poverty, 15% live near service about every 20 minutes (i.e. the shared segment of the Jazz A and B lines), and 55% live near service about every 30 minutes or better. Many of these residents live in either Seaside near the Jazz A and B, or in Marina near Line 20.
Proposed Final Network
Figure 30 (below right) shows the same information, if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented.
• In the greater Seaside-Monterey urban area, the total number residents and jobs near an MST bus line would decline very slightly, to 67% of residents and jobs (-1%). • The number of residents and jobs near service every 30 minutes or better would increase to 51% of residents (+12%) and 54% of jobs (+13%). • 62% of residents in poverty would live near service every 30 minutes or better (+7%). • 14% of all residents, 30% of jobs, and 18% of residents in poverty would be near service every 15 minutes or better. This would be made possible by eliminating the Jazz A devia- tion into Monterey Peninsula College and modifying the Jazz routing into Sand City Station.
Figure 29: Chart showing the percentage of residents and jobs within a half-mile walk of existing MST bus lines in the greater Seaside-Monterey urban area.
Figure 30: Chart showing the percentage of residents and jobs in the greater Seaside-Monterey urban area that would be within a half-mile walk of MST bus lines in the Medium Scenario.
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5 Ex ISTING VS . P ROPOSE d S ERVICE B y A REA
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitMonterey Bay & Peninsula – Low, Medium and High Scenarios Low Scenario
The Low Scenario is a contingency plan to help define
how MST would react to either (a) lower revenues than
expected or (b) an insufficient number of drivers to
operate the Medium Scenario (or some other unexpected
resource constraint). In the Low Scenario, proposed
service would be similar to the Medium Scenario, except for the following changes:
• Red and blue lines would end service an hour earlier
in the evening, at 9 PM on weekdays and 8 PM on
weekends.
• MST would not operate Line 24 to Carmel Valley
Village. Service in the Carmel Valley would be limited
to a longline of Route 8 to Del Mesa Dr., replacing
existing service on Lines 91 and 92.
• MST would not operate direct service from CSUMB to
Salinas on the new Line 25X.
Medium Scenario
The Medium Scenario would operate as described in
previous pages. The map below is provided for reference and comparison purposes.
Reading the Maps
As in the rest of this report, the maps on
this page show bus lines color-coded by
midday frequency on weekdays.
• Red lines run about every 15 minutes.
• Blue lines run about every 30 minutes.
• Green lines run about once an hour.
• Gold lines run less than once an hour.
High Scenario
The High Scenario is designed to show where and how much MST could increase service if a new funding source appeared in the future. The most likely source for new funds would be a new countywide 1/8-cent sales tax, if voters were to approve.
In the High Scenario, proposed service would be similar to the Medium scenario, except for the following changes:
• The Jazz A and B would continue operating until midnight, seven days a week, although at lower evening frequencies. • Line 20 (Salinas to Monterey) would be upgraded to run every 15 minutes on weekdays.
• If the SURF! project is completed, a new Line 15 would connect CSUMB to Line 20 for faster regional connections. • Lines 17 and 18 would combine into a single path from CSUMB to Marina Transit Exchange. A new Line 16 would
restore basic coverage to the Abrams Dr. area in Marina.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Regional Service – Existing
Reading the Maps
The maps on this and the following pages
depict how MST regional bus lines are
currently organized. These maps are anno-
tated with comments that explain how the
existing network operates, and how that
would change in the future.
Most MST regional lines connect more
rural parts of Monterey County to
Monterey, Salinas and Watsonville.
MST also considers Lines 20, 21 and 61
to be regional, because they originate in
Salinas and go to the greater Seaside-
Monterey-Marina area. However, these are
covered in more detail in prior sections.
As in the rest of this report, this map
shows bus lines color-coded by midday
frequency on weekdays.
• Blue lines run about every 30 minutes.
• Green lines run about once an hour.
• Gold lines run less than once an hour.
There are no red lines on this map
because no regional service runs every 15
minutes or better at this time.
Gonzales, Soledad, Greenfield and
King City are served by:
• Line 23, a regional connector to
Salinas. It runs 11 to 14 times a day
on weekdays, at widely varying inter-
vals. It tends to run every two hours
in the middle of the day.
• Line 84, a twice a day extension of
Line 23 to San Lucas, San Ardo, San
Miguel and Paso Robles.
• On-call services for short local trips
within each city. These often have
very long wait times, especially at
high-demand times.
Big Sur is served
by Line 22. It has
been operating three
times a day every day
during the pandemic,
but was previously a
weekend-only service.
The Carmel Valley
is served by Line 24,
with service every 40
minutes to Carmel-by-
the-Sea and Monterey.
Lines 28 and 29 each
operate every two hours,
combining to provide hourly
service between Salinas and
Watsonville.
Line 28 travels via Castroville and
Highway 1. Line 29 travels via
Prunedale and Las Lomas.
Line 55 to San Jose has been
suspended since March 2020.
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5 Ex ISTING VS . P ROPOSE d S ERVICE B y A REA
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitRegional Service – Medium Scenario Line 23 from Salinas to King City would
become more frequent, regularly running every 60
minutes on weekdays and weekends, and every 30
minutes during weekday morning peak hours.
Line 23 would also be faster and more direct:
travel time from Salinas Transit Center to King City
would be 20 minutes shorter, averaging 1 hour and
20 minutes.
This would be made possible by making fewer
deviations on Highway 101; terminating the route at
Salinas Transit Center instead of Hartnell College;
and additional investment in service.
Line 22 to Big Sur
would be discontin-
ued, due to the very
small number of people
and jobs served at a
relatively high cost.
Line 24 from Carmel Valley would operate
every 60 minutes and end at Carmel Rancho,
with a timed transfer to and from Line 2 for trips
to Downtown Carmel, Monterey and points beyond.
Lines 28 and 29 would continue to
provide service between Salinas and
Watsonville at similar frequencies.
Timed transfers would save pas-
sengers to and from Watsonville
25 to 55 minutes when connecting
to another bus at Salinas Transit
Center.
As a service with a
very high cost per rider
that does not provide
unique coverage within
MST’s service area, Line
55 to San Jose would
not be restored.
On-call services would be replaced
by investing in local circulators
running every 30 minutes in Gonzales
(Line 31), Soledad (Line 32), Greenfield
(Line 33) and King City (Line 34).
Converting on-call services to regular cir-
culators will ensure higher capacity and
shorter, more regular and more predict-
able wait times.
Line 84 would continue to
operate twice a day to San Lucas,
San Ardo, San Miguel and Paso
Robles, with departures and arrivals
scheduled to match Line 23.
Reading the Maps
As in the rest of this report, this map
shows bus lines color-coded by midday
frequency on weekdays.
• Blue lines run about every 30 minutes.
• Green lines run about once an hour.
• Gold lines run less than once an hour.
There are no red lines on this map
because no regional service is proposed
to run every 15 minutes or better in the
Medium Scenario.
How Timed Transfers Would Work
Timed transfers would make it possible
to connect from one bus line to another
without a long wait.
At Monterey Transit Plaza:
• Blue lines would arrive at :10 and :40
minutes after the hour, and leave at :15
and :45.
• Green lines would arrive at :10 minutes
after the hour, and leave at :15.
At Salinas Transit Center:
• Blue lines would arrive at :10 and :40
minutes after the hour, and leave at :15
and :45.
• Green lines would arrive at :10 minutes
after the hour, and leave at :15.
• Lines 28 and 29 would alternate, but
there would always be a departure to
Watsonville at :15 after the hour as well.
At Carmel Rancho, Lines 2 and 24 would
both arrive at :40 minutes after the hour
and leave at :45.
Line 29 would no longer operate on North Main Street
in Salinas. Instead, it would stay on Highway 101 for a faster travel time. Passengers traveling between North Salinas and Watsonville would need to transfer at Salinas Transit Center.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitRegional Service – Low, Medium and High Scenarios Low Scenario
The Low Scenario is a contingency plan to help define
how MST would react to either (a) lower revenues than
expected or (b) an insufficient number of drivers to
operate the Medium Scenario (or some other unexpected
resource constraint). In the Low Scenario, proposed
service would be similar to the Medium Scenario, except for the following changes:
• Line 23 from Salinas to King City would operate every 90 minutes (instead of every 60 minutes) in the middle
of the day on weekdays, and on weekends. Morning
peak service would remain every 30 minutes, and
afternoon and evening service every 60 minutes.
• Line 24 to the Carmel Valley would be discontinued.
Medium Scenario
The Medium Scenario would operate as described in
previous pages. The map below is provided for reference and comparison purposes.
Reading the Maps
As in the rest of this report, the maps on
this page show bus lines color-coded by
midday frequency on weekdays.
• Red lines run about every 15 minutes.
• Blue lines run about every 30 minutes.
• Green lines run about once an hour.
• Gold lines run less than once an hour.
High Scenario
The High Scenario is designed to show where and how
much MST could increase service if a new funding source appeared in future. The most likely source for new funds would be a new countywide 1/8-cent sales tax, if voters were to approve. In the High Scenario, proposed service would be similar to the Medium scenario, except for the following changes:
• Line 20 between Monterey and Salinas would be
upgraded to run every 15 minutes.
• There would be a new Line 59 to Gilroy, running every 90 minutes and connecting to VTA and Caltrain for
access to the Bay Area.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitService Frequency by MST Line and Time of day – Existing 15 20 30 60 90 ●
4 AM
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
PM
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
AM
4 AM
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
PM
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
AM
Jazz A/B Aquarium-Sand City 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Jazz A 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Jazz B 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 1 Asilomar-Monterey 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 2 Pacific Grove-Carmel 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 3 CHOMP-Monterey ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 7 Del Rey Oaks-Monterey ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
11 Carmel-Sand City ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 16 Marina-CSUMB 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 18 Monterey-Marina 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 20 Monterey-Salinas 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 90 60 60 60 60 60 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 21 Pebble Beach-Salinas ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 22 Big Sur-Monterey ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 23 Salinas-King City 25 60 60 60 60 90 90 90 90 90 60 30 60 60 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 24 Carmel Valley 40 30 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 60 60 60 60 60 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 28 Watsonville-Salinas ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 29 Watsonville-Salinas ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 41 Salinas-Alisal 35 30 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 40 40 40 25 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 60 60 Longline to Northridge 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 40 40 40 25 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 60 60 42 Westridge-Alisal 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 44 Northridge-Salinas 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 45 Northridge-Salinas 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 48 Airport Business Center 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 49 Salinas-Santa Rita 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 61 Veteran's Shuttle ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 84 King City-Paso Robles ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 91 Sand City -Pacific Meadows ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 92 CHOMP-Pacific Meadows ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 93 Ryan Ranch-Monterey ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 94 Sand City-Carmel ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
95 Williams Ranch-Northridge ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
WEEKENDWEEKDAYS
Monterey-Salinas Transit - Early 2021 Route Frequencies The bus comes about every:
15 minutes
or better
16-25
minutes
26-39
minutes
40-60
minutes
Over 60
minutes
Limited (8 trips or less
per day)
This page shows how often MST buses
are running on existing bus lines.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitService Frequency by MST Line and Time of day – Medium Scenario 15 30 60 ●
5 AM
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
PM
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
PM
5 AM
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
PM
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
PM
Jazz A/B Aquarium-Sand City 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Jazz A Sand City via Hilby 60 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Jazz B Sand City via Broadway 60 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 1 Pacific Grove-Monterey 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Two-way loop past Downtown PG 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 2 Monterey - Carmel 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 7 Ryan Ranch-Monterey 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 8 Monterey-CHOMP 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Longline to CHOMP, Carmel, Del Mesa ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 17/18 Sand City-Marina 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 17 Sand City-Marina via CSUMB 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 18 Sand City-Marina via Monterey Rd 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 20 Monterey-Salinas 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 23 Salinas-King City 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 24 Carmel Valley 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 25X Salinas-CSUMB (in-session only) 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 28 Watsonville - Castroville - Salinas ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 29 Watsonville - Prunedale - Salinas ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 31 Gonzales Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 32 Soledad Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 33 Greenfield Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 34 King City Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 41 Salinas-Alisal 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Longline to Northridge 30 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 43 Salinas TC - Romie Lane 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 44 Salinas TC - Boronda 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 45 Salinas TC - Sanborn Road 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 46 Salinas TC - Natividad 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 47 Salinas TC - Hartnell East Alisal 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 49 Salinas TC - North Main 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Longline to Bolsa Knolls 30 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 61 Veteran's Shuttle ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 84 King City-Paso Robles ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 94 Sand City-Carmel ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
95 Williams Ranch-Northridge ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 96 Airport Business Center 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Limited (8 trips
or less per day)
Proposed MST Bus Line Frequencies - Medium Scenario
The bus comes about every:
WEEKDAYS WEEKEND
15 minutes
or better
30 minutes 60 minutes
The Medium Scenario is the most likely
scenario. It is effectively “the plan,”
barring unforeseen circumstances.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitService Frequency by MST Line and Time of day – Low Scenario 15 30 60 ●
5 AM
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
PM
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
PM
6 AM
7 8 9 10 11 12
PM
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
PM
Jazz A/B Aquarium-Sand City 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Jazz A Sand City via Hilby 60 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Jazz B Sand City via Broadway 60 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 1 Pacific Grove-Monterey 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Two-way loop past Downtown PG 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 2 Monterey - Carmel 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 7 Ryan Ranch-Monterey 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 8 Monterey-CHOMP 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Longline to CHOMP, Carmel, Del Mesa ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 17/18 Sand City-Marina 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 17 Sand City-Marina via CSUMB 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 18 Sand City-Marina via Monterey Rd 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 20 Monterey-Salinas 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 23 Salinas-King City 30 30 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 60 60 60 60 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 28 Watsonville - Castroville - Salinas ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 29 Watsonville - Prunedale - Salinas ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 31 Gonzales Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 32 Soledad Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 33 Greenfield Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 34 King City Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 41 Salinas-Alisal 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Longline to Northridge 30 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 43 Salinas TC - Romie Lane 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 44 Salinas TC - Boronda 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 45 Salinas TC - Sanborn Road 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 46 Salinas TC - Natividad 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 49 Salinas TC - North Main 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Longline to Bolsa Knolls 30 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 61 Veteran's Shuttle ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 84 King City-Paso Robles ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 94 Sand City-Carmel ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
95 Williams Ranch-Northridge ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 96 Airport Business Center 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60
WEEKDAYS WEEKEND
15 minutes
or better
Proposed MST Bus Line Frequencies - Low Scenario
The bus comes about every:
30 minutes 60 minutes Limited (8 trips
or less per day)
The Low Scenario is a contingency plan
in case MST revenues or bus driver
availability were lower than expected.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas TransitService Frequency by MST Line and Time of day – High Scenario 15 30 60 ●
5 AM
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
PM
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
AM
6 AM
7 8 9 10 11 12
PM
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
AM
Jazz A/B Aquarium-Sand City 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Jazz A Sand City via Hilby 60 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Jazz B Sand City via Broadway 60 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 1 Pacific Grove-Monterey 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Two-way loop past Downtown PG 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 2 Monterey - Carmel 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 7 Ryan Ranch-Monterey 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 8 Monterey-CHOMP 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 Longline to CHOMP, Carmel, Del Mesa ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 15 SURF-CSUMB Shuttle 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 16 Marina TE-Abrams 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 17/18 Sand City-Marina 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 17 Sand City-Marina via CSUMB 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 18 Sand City-Marina via Monterey Rd 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 20 Monterey-Salinas 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 23 Salinas-King City 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 24 Carmel Valley 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 25X Salinas-CSUMB (in-session only) 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 28 Watsonville - Castroville - Salinas ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 29 Watsonville - Prunedale - Salinas ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 31 Gonzales Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 32 Soledad Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 33 Greenfield Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 34 King City Circulator 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 41 Salinas-Northridge 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 43 Salinas TC - Romie Lane 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 44 Salinas TC - Boronda 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 45 Salinas TC - Sanborn Road 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 46 Salinas TC - Natividad 60 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 47 Salinas TC - Hartnell East Alisal 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 49 Salinas TC - North Main 30 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 Longline to Bolsa Knolls 30 30 30 30 36 36 36 36 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 59 Salinas - Gilroy ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 61 Veteran's Shuttle ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 84 King City-Paso Robles ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 94 Sand City-Carmel ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
95 Williams Ranch-Northridge ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 96 Airport Business Center 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60
WEEKDAYS WEEKEND
15 minutes
or better
Proposed MST Bus Line Frequencies - High Scenario
The bus comes about every:
30 minutes 60 minutes Limited (8 trips
or less per day)
The High Scenario represents what
MST could do if voters passed
another 1/8-cent sales tax for service.
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JARRETT WALKER + ASSOCIATES Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
6 How would this plan make transit
more useful?
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
More people would be near service, and service would be more frequent.
Existing Service
Figure 31 (below left) shows how many residents and jobs in Monterey County are located within a half-mile walk of a stop on an existing MST bus line, and the level of service available on the most frequent route at that stop.
When the bus doesn’t come very often, using transit requires lots of waiting; but few people can afford to spend an hour or more waiting for a trip they need to make every day , and fewer people want to. The low frequencies in the existing MST network suggest that most Monterey County residents don’t live near transit that comes often enough to be useful, even if the bus went directly to the places they need to go. • Only 27% of county residents and 20% of jobs are near service that comes about every 30 minutes or better on weekdays.
• Only 10% of residents and 6% of jobs are near service that comes every 15 minutes or better.
Proposed Final Plan
Figure 32 (below right) shows the same information, if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented.
Frequency alone doesn’t guarantee that a new or changed bus line will be especially useful.
But if a bus doesn’t come very often, few people will ever use it for more than occasional trips. As such, the higher frequencies in this plan suggest the plan has the potential to provide service that is useful to more people, for more trips. • The number of people and jobs near service every 30 minutes or better would increase to 46% of county residents (+19%) and 37% of jobs (+17%). This includes a majority of residents in poverty (57%).
• The number of people and jobs near service every 15 minutes would increase to 17% of residents (+7%) and 16% of jobs (+10%).
Figure 31: Chart showing the percentage of residents and jobs within a half-mile walk of existing MST bus lines in Monterey County.
Figure 32: Chart showing the percentage of residents and jobs in Monterey County that would be within a half-mile walk of MST bus lines in the Medium Scenario.
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Most transit trips would take far less time.
In the following pages, we’ll show you two
different ways to think about how much more
or less time transit trips would take if this plan
were implemented.
Example Trip Itineraries
The most concrete way of understanding
whether transit trips would be shorter or
longer in future is to plot out exactly how long
those trips take today, and how that would
change. This chapter provides nine examples
selected to represent:
• Experiences from many different parts of
MST’s service area.
• A range of trip lengths and purposes.
• In most cases, trips that would need to
occur at a specific time in someone’s day.
The goal is to show what each trip entails,
based on the choices that a reasonable and
able-bodied person could make, if they
needed to get somewhere by a certain time.
In existing service, travel times were calcu-
lated by seeking directions from Google for
Wednesday, August 18, 20211.
Trip examples in proposed service used the
same start and arrival constraints, making
adjustments to in-vehicle travel time if the path
taken on the bus had changed2.
Trip examples are provided on page 51 to
page 59.
1 In one case (Monterey to East Salinas at 4 PM), Google suggested transit directions that appeared less efficient than what the authors of this report could read from the MST schedules for Lines 20 and
21. In that specific case, the trip example was modified from the original Google directions.
2 For both existing and future trips, the examples assume that (a) a passenger would want to reach their initial bus stop at least five minutes before the bus is scheduled to arrive and (b) a passenger would plan to arrive at their final destination at least five minutes early, to avoid being late if their bus were running late.
Calculating Travel Times
Every transit trip is made up of walking, waiting, and riding.
Most transit trips begin and end with walking (or
rolling) to and from your destinations. The amount
of walking depends on the location of the nearest
relevant bus stop for that trip.
Often when people think of riding somewhere by
transit they only consider the time spent on the bus
or train. It is important to remember that every
transit trip is made up of time spent walking (or
rolling) and time spent waiting.
Waiting doesn’t just happen at the start of your
ride, it also happens at the end. You may not
need to leave the house long before your depar-
ture, but if your bus is infrequent, you have to
choose between being very early or too late.
For these trip examples, we assume you arrive at
the first stop five minutes early to make sure you
don’t miss the bus. We also count the difference
between your intended and scheduled arrival time
as waiting time.
Time spent riding will mostly remain similar
between the Existing Network and the Draft
Network Plan scenarios, since buses won’t
suddenly run faster on the same roads. However,
there will be some time savings in places where
bus lines would be straighter and more direct.
Walking to and
from a stop
Waiting for the
next bus or train
Riding to your
destination
Trip
Start
Trip
End
Walking
Walking
Waiting
Waiting
Riding
Riding
Waiting at
Destination
Origin-Destination Matrix
It would be impossible to plot out every pos-
sible trip that someone does or could make on
transit in Monterey County.
To provide a broader perspective on the
degree to which trips get longer or shorter,
page 50 shows a comparison of average
travel times in existing service vs. in the
Medium Scenario of this plan for 15 promi-
nent locations throughout MST’s service area.
Important: Waiting time
counts!
Few people have the liberty of arriving when
they please for all their trips, or to control
their appointments or social activities so they
end exactly at the right time to catch the bus
home. Riding transit means waiting some-
where. The more frequent the service, the
shorter the wait.
Both the origin-destination matrix and the trip
examples include the impacts of waiting on
total travel time.
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Travel Time Change Between Key Locations
Weekdays - Medium Scenario
SShhoorrtteerr bbyy oovveerr 6600 mmiinn SShhoorrtteerr bbyy 3300 ttoo 6600 mmiinn SShhoorrtteerr bbyy 1155 ttoo 3300 mmiinn SShhoorrtteerr bbyy 55 ttoo 1155 mmiinn == UUnncchhaannggeedd LLoonnggeerr bbyy 1155 ttoo 3300 mmiinn LLoonnggeerr bbyy 55 ttoo 1155 mmiinn Carmel
Valley
Carmel-by-
the-Sea CSUMB King City Marina Monterey -
Downtown
PG -
Downtown
Salinas -
Alisal
Salinas -
Downtown
Salinas -
Natividad
Salinas -
Northridge Sand City Seaside Soledad Watsonville
+ 10 min -25 min -65 min -5 min + 10 min -15 min = -5 min -35 min -35 min = + 5 min -55 min -15 min -40 min -80 min -15 min -5 min -30 min -15 min -15 min -50 min -45 min -15 min -5 min -65 min -25 min -85 min -5 min -20 min -15 min -5 min -10 min -45 min -40 min -10 min -15 min -75 min -35 min -60 min -60 min -90 min -40 min -45 min -75 min -80 min -60 min -60 min -35 min -70 min = -30 min = = -35 min -30 min = = -50 min -10 min
-15 min = = -35 min -30 min = -5 min -50 min -10 min
-35 min -35 min -70 min -65 min -30 min = -85 min -45 min = -5 min = -5 min -5 min -35 min =
-25 min -30 min = = -40 min =
= -40 min -40 min -70 min -25 min
-30 min -30 min -95 min -5 min
= -50 min -10 min
-50 min -10 min
-65 min
Monterey - Downtown
Carmel Valley
Carmel-by-the-Sea
CSUMB
King City
Marina
Seaside
Soledad
Pacific Grove - Downtown
Salinas - Alisal
Salinas - Downtown
Salinas - Natividad
Salinas - Northridge Mall
Sand City
Change in Average Travel Times Between 15 Key Locations Existing Service vs.
Medium Scenario
The chart in Figure 33 shows the average
change in travel time by transit:
• When comparing existing service to the
service proposed in the Medium Scenario
of this plan;
• To travel between any two of 15 selected
locations throughout MST’s service area.
The calculated differences in travel time reflect
changes to:
• Frequency. On average, a passenger will
wait half the time between two buses
for the next bus. If a bus comes every 60
minutes, that means a 30 minute wait on
average. If that same bus would come
every 30 minutes in future, the average
wait would only be 15 minutes. The matrix
shows this kind of change as a 15 minute
time savings.
• Timed Transfers. The existing MST
network has very few timed transfers. A
passenger connecting from one line that
runs every 30 minutes to another line that
runs every 30 minutes would need to wait
an average of 15 minutes for their second
bus. This plan includes timed transfers for
all lines that run every 30 and every 60
minutes, so in most cases that wait would
be reduced to 5 minutes. The matrix shows
this kind of change as a 10 minute savings.
• Routing. In some cases, the lines proposed
in this plan take different routes than exist-
ing lines. The resulting differences in travel
time on the bus (and walking to and from
bus stops) are also taken into account in the
matrix.
Figure 33: Chart showing the average travel time change between the existing service and the Medium Scenario, if a person were using transit to travel between any two of 15 prominent locations in MST’s service area.
Many transit trips would be 30 or more minutes shorter than they are today if this plan were implemented. Few would be longer.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Trip Examples - Salinas and Boronda
Example no. 1: North Salinas to South Salinas
Imagine you are a hospital worker living near North Salinas High School. You need to reach your job at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital (4.5 miles away) and your shift starts at 9:00 AM. Here’s what you would need to do in Existing Service:
Notice this trip only includes 21 minutes riding the bus, and that you would spend more time waiting at Salinas Transit Center than on either bus. You might even be able to walk from Salinas Transit Center starting at 8:10 AM and arrive at the hospital and arrive at the same time.
Here’s what the same trip would look like if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented:
This trip would get 25 minutes shorter; you would be able to leave your house 25 minutes later, mostly due to less waiting. This is due to the higher frequency on both routes, and an important scheduling detail: many destinations are within a 10 minute bus ride or a 20 minute walk of Salinas Transit Center. By scheduling buses to come into Salinas TC between 8:35 AM and 8:40 AM, and leave again at 8:45 AM, you can reach most of the jobs in South Salinas on time for a 9:00 AM shift start.
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Example no. 2: Boronda to Hartnell College
Imagine you live in Boronda and take classes at Hartnell College, 2.5 miles away. The class you need to attend starts at 1:00 PM1. Here’s what you would need to do in Existing Service:
Notice that you would spend more time at Hartnell waiting for class to start than you would spend actually getting to campus.
If you decided to transfer to Route 20 instead of walking, this would only change where you wait. You would spend 15 minutes more waiting for your next bus at Salinas Transit Center, and 12 minutes less waiting on campus for class to start.
Given how long this trip by transit is for a short distance, you might even consider walking the whole distance, which an able-bodied person would be able to do in about an hour. 1 Many in-person classes at Hartnell College in Fall 2021 are scheduled to start around 9:40 AM, 1:00 PM and 6:00 PM.
Here’s what the same trip would look like if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented:
This trip would get 30 minutes shorter; you would be able to leave your house 30 minutes later, mostly due to less waiting.
You would experience the time savings if you preferred to transfer to Route 20 instead of walking. In either case, you would now arrive just in time for class, after traveling less than 45 minutes.
As in the prior example, the time savings are due to a combination of higher frequency (in this case, service every 30 minutes instead of every 75 minutes on Route 44) and the timing of arrivals and departures at Salinas Transit Center.
The combined time savings would make transit a much more viable option for this trip. It’s still longer than driving (15-20 minutes including time to park and walk to class), but it’s faster than walking and might be easier than asking a family member for a ride.
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Trip Examples - Salinas to Monterey
Example no. 3: East Salinas to Downtown Monterey
Imagine you are a restaurant worker living in East Salinas. You need to reach your job in Downtown Monterey for the start of your lunch shift at 10:00 AM. Here’s what you would need to do in Existing Service:
This trip uses two of MST’s most frequent routes, so although it does involve some waiting along the way, this is about as fast as transit can connect two places this far apart while also serving a lot of other major destinations on the way.
Here’s what the same trip would look like if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented:
This trip wouldn’t change much. That is because MST has already organized a nearly-timed connection between Line 41 and Line 20 at Salinas Transit Center, and that connection prob - ably wouldn’t shift by more than 5 minutes.
In either case, this kind of service makes it possible to travel regionally from East Salinas, even if you don’t have a car to get around or a carpool of colleagues you can count on. It would, however, still take a long time.
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Trip Examples - Monterey Bay & Peninsula
Example no. 4: Seaside to Pacific Grove
Let’s imagine you are a retail worker living in the center of Seaside, and you need to reach your job at Country Club Gate Center in Pacific Grove (6 miles away) and your shift starts at noon. Here’s what you would need to do in Existing Service:
Notice that this trip includes a total of only 29 minutes actually riding the bus, and that you would spend more time waiting at your destination than you would getting there.
Here’s what the same trip would look like if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented:
This trip would get 9 minutes shorter; you would be able to leave your house a few minutes later, mostly due to the scheduling of connections at Monterey Transit Plaza. Because most buses are scheduled to arrive at Monterey Transit Plaza between 11:05 AM and 11:10 AM, and leave again at 11:15 AM, it would be possible to arrive near your destination a little less early.
This example and the next one are in some ways typical of many trips in the greater Seaside- Monterey urban area. Timed transfers and small frequency improvements would allow for marginal improvements on many local trips, but those improvements wouldn’t be as significant as the combi- nation of timed transfers and large frequency improvements in Salinas. This is a function of the policy direction of the plan, which would focus more service in Salinas, and slightly reduce service hours overall on the Peninsula.
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Example no. 5: Monterey/Seaside to CSUMB
Let’s imagine you work in an administrative position at California State University - Monterey Bay (CSUMB). You live 6.5 miles away in the Laguna Grande area near the Monterey/Seaside city limits, and your job on campus starts at 8:00 AM. Here’s what you would need to do in Existing Service:
Existing Route 18 is very direct, but only runs every 60 minutes. So getting to campus would take just a few minutes more than driving, but you’d get to work 43 minutes before you were expected to start. Your only alternative using transit would result in arriving 17 minutes late.
Here’s what the same trip would look like if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented:
This trip would get 10 minutes shorter. This is because even though you would need to take two buses, the first one would come every 30 minutes, and you would have a timed connection to the second bus, reducing your overall waiting time and allowing you to leave home 10 minutes later.
However, you would still get to work a little earlier than would be ideal, and this would still remain a much longer trip than driving (15-25 minutes door to door, depending on traffic and parking).
Because you are depending on service every 30 minutes instead of every 60 minutes, You would now be faced with the slightly less dire choice of getting to work either 23 minutes early, or 7 minutes late.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Example no. 6: Monterey to Ryan Ranch
Let’s imagine you live in the Old Town area in Monterey, and you are a senior citizen with regular medical appointments at the CHOMP Outpatient Center in the Ryan Ranch area. Your next appoint- ment is at 2:00 PM. Here’s what you would need to do in Existing Service:
If you are not eligible for paratransit, the only way to get to Ryan Ranch on transit is with Line 93, a special-purpose line funded by Measure Q specifically to connect seniors to services and facilities like the medical offices at Ryan Ranch. But Line 93 only runs six times a day, and takes a very long route to Ryan Ranch, so you would spend over an hour and 15 minutes waiting and nearly 45 minutes on the bus for a 6 mile trip.
Here’s what the same trip would look like if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented:
This trip would become over an hour shorter. This is because the proposed Line 7 would run every 60 minutes and take a much more direct path from Monterey Transit Plaza to Ryan Ranch.
This would still take about twice as long as driving from home. However, there’s no safe way to walk or bike to Ryan Ranch, so transit is the only reasonable alternative. If you live somewhere near a route that would connect to Monterey Transit Plaza, and you couldn’t afford a car or didn’t otherwise need one to go about your daily life, the proposed changes to the network might make using transit a viable option for your medical appointments.
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Example no. 7: Soledad to Watsonville
Let’s imagine you live in Soledad, and you need to go to Watsonville (47 miles away) for an appoint- ment at noon. Here’s what you would need to do in Existing Service:
Because Line 23 doesn’t connect well with either Line 28 or Line 29 to Watsonville, you would end up waiting almost an hour at Salinas Transit Center to get to your destination. As a result, you would have to leave home before 9:00 AM.
Here’s what the same trip would look like if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented:
This trip would get over an hour shorter. This is because Line 23 would take a faster, more direct path between Soledad and Salinas, allowing it to arrive on time to make a timed con - nection with Line 28. you would only wait 5 minutes at Salinas Transit Center.
This would still take about twice as long as driving. But this kind of trip is so long that it would be relatively difficult to convince a friend or family member to take you to Watsonville and back in a single day, let alone regularly. By making this trip an hour shorter, this plan would reduce the hassle associated with transit if you didn’t have a car available, or didn’t have a reliable enough car to take a trip that far from home.
Trip Examples - Regional
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Example no. 8: Soledad to King City
Let’s imagine you still live in Soledad, but this time you need to go visit a family member at Mee Memorial Hospital in King City, and visiting hours start at noon. Here’s what you would need to do in Existing Service:
Because Line 23 only runs every two hours in the middle of the day, your last opportunity to get there by noon on the bus requires leaving home before 10:00 AM and waiting over an hour in King City.
Here’s what the same trip would look like if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented:
This trip would become over an hour shorter; you could leave home closer to 11:00 AM. This is mostly because Line 23 would run every 60 minutes instead of once every two hours in the middle of the day.
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Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Example no. 9: King City to Hartnell College in Salinas Imagine you live in King City and take classes at Hartnell College main campus in Salinas, almost 50 miles away. The class you need to attend starts at 9:40 AM1. Here’s what you would need to do in Existing Service:
Line 23 would provide a service all the way to Hartnell, but you would arrive 45 minutes before your class starts and have a long wait on campus.
1 Many in-person classes at Hartnell College in Fall 2021 are scheduled to start around 9:40 AM, 1:00 PM and 6:00 PM.
Here’s what the same trip would look like if the Medium Scenario of this plan were implemented:
Line 23 would terminate at Salinas Transit Center. This would give you the choice to either transfer to Line 20 (with a timed connection and a 5 minute wait, as above) or to walk 12 to 15 minutes from Salinas Transit Center to campus (as shown below). Either way, your trip would become over 30 minutes shorter.
The time savings would come from two sources.
• Faster, more direct path on Line 23. The time riding the bus from King City to Salinas would be reduced by over 20 minutes, because the bus would spend more time on Highway 101 and less time traveling within each city along the way.
• Timed connections in Salinas (specifically, scheduling for most bus lines to arrive at Salinas Transit Center at 9:10 AM and leave at 9:15 AM). This means Line 23 would arrive in Downtown Salinas at 9:10 AM, with time for you to reach Hartnell either on foot or with a transfer to a second bus, but not so much time you would spend most of an hour waiting around on campus.
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Next Steps7
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7 N ExT S TEPS
Comprehensive Operational Analysis - Final Network Plan Monterey-Salinas Transit
Plan Adoption and Implementation
The Monterey-Salinas Transit COA is com-
bining technical analysis and broad-based
community input to develop a post-pandemic
transit network.
So far, this has included the following steps:
• May 2021: Choices Report. This report
(available at http://mst.org/coa) provides
facts about the existing network, and
describes the key choices for future service.
It was developed through a combination
of technical and broad-based community
input.
• June 2021: Committee direction. The
MST Board of Directors’ Operations
Performance Committee provided the
project team with direction on the key
trade-offs, based on input from the public
and policymakers.
• June-August 2021: develop a draft
Network Plan. The project team devel-
oped a draft of the redesigned bus
network.
• September-October 2021: Public Review
of the draft Plan. The Draft Plan was pre-
sented to the public, as detailed in Chapter
3 of this report.
• November-december 2021: Final Plan.
The project team made changes to the
Draft Plan taking into account public
input and discussions with the Operations
Performance Committee. This report pres-
ents the Final Plan.
The next steps in the process will be:
• MST’s Board of Directors must decide
whether or not to adopt this plan in
February 2022.
• MST is targeting implementation of the
revised network in late 2022.
Figure 34: Project timeline. This report presents the Final Plan. The next step will be a decision by MST’s Board of Directors to adopt the plan.
If the Board makes this decision, MST staff will then be responsible for implementation over the course of 2022.
Analyze the Network
Community Input
Choices Report
May 2021
Committee Direction
June 2021
Draft Network Plan
August 2021
Community Input
Final Plan
February 2022
Board Decision
February 2022
Redesign the Network
Implementation by MST
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Key Considerations in Network Implementation
If this plan is adopted, MST will need to take a
variety of operational and policy steps over the
course of 2022 before it can be implemented.
The most critical steps are described on this
page and the next one. This is not intended to
be a complete list or set of recommendations,
but a high-level overview of the main issues to
be addressed.
Operator Recruitment
The most immediate barrier to implementa-
tion of any new service at MST is the ongoing
shortage of bus drivers. This shortage follows
an unusually high number of resignations and
retirements since the beginning of the COVID-
19 pandemic, combined with a pause on new
driver recruitment and training from early 2020
to mid-2021.
To maintain service reliability in the context of
an operator shortage, MST reduced service in
both September and December 2021. Certain
lines listed as “existing” in this report are not
currently operating, and many have fewer runs
per day than in early 2021.
MST has already begun addressing this chal-
lenge, recruiting a new class of drivers in
the fall of 2021. But MST still does not have
enough staff to operate all the service that it
can fund.
To restore the reliability of existing service
and ensure that the Medium Scenario can
be implemented as planned, MST must hire
more operators throughout 2022.
Fare Policy Changes
Since 2011, MST has set fares by route type.
Current fare policy does not provide free or
discounted transfers.
As a result, MST fares bear little relationship to
the time or distance travelled by an MST rider.
Many short trips can cost $5 or more simply
because the origin and destination are on two
different routes.
The network proposed in this plan allows MST
to reach more people and jobs with more fre-
quent service. This is made possible by relying
on transfers, so riders can move seamlessly
across the region.
To allow riders to take advantage of the
new timed transfer system, MST should
change its fare policy as soon as practical.
The simplest alternative to the existing system
is likely to involve:
• Fewer fare types. Either a single fare
systemwide for boarding the first bus, or
limiting to just local vs. regional routes1.
• Free transfers within a set amount of
time. Many agencies allow riders to board
a second bus for free by showing the ticket
they received upon paying their first fare2.
Typically the transfer is valid if the ticket
was issued in the last 2 hours, otherwise a
new fare is required.
Free transfers are easiest to implement when
all routes charge the same fare. But if MST
1 This could still be modulated with a discount for specific groups (e.g. seniors, veterans and people with disabilities).
2 Because most MST riders pay their fares in cash, this summary dis - cussion is written for a cash-and-ticket system. But similar principles can be applied to electronic ticketing systems and other payment technologies. Contactless tap-in tap-out systems (like the one currently being piloted by MST) make it possible to charge distance- based fares, which relate more clearly to MST’s operating costs.
Work is under way to make this new system more widely usable for riders who currently rely on cash.
needs to continue charging a higher fare
for regional service, transfers from local to
regional routes may require a discounted fare.
For example, if a local fare were $2.50 and a
regional fare were $3.50, then a passenger
might be asked to pay $1.00 upon boarding a
regional bus after taking a local bus.
How would free transfers impact
revenue?
Any change in fare policy comes with financial
risks. It is reasonable to think that if MST col-
lected less fare revenue, this might require
MST to operate less service. Ensuring this does
not happen will require careful consideration
of fare levels and transfer discounts before any
changes are made.
Nevertheless, an initial review shows that
MST’s fare collections are a small percentage
of the agency’s revenues. With current policies,
MST expects to collect about $2.7 million in
direct fare revenue in Fiscal Year 2023, com-
pared to a total operating budget estimated at
over $55 million3.
Even in a very conservative scenario, this
suggests switching to free transfers would cost
MST about 2 to 3% of annual operating costs4.
This represents far less than the 8% difference
between the Low Scenario and Medium
Scenario in this plan, and there are many
reasons to think the real impact on revenue
would be even smaller.
3 See pp. 27-32 of the MST FY 2022 & FY 2023 Budget , adopted on June 14, 2021. As of Jan 14, 2022, this document is available online at: https://mst.org/wp-content/media/Final-Adopted-FY2022- FY2023-Budgets.pdf
4 In this “very conservative scenario”, we assume that changes to the network attract no new ridership and that 100% of existing trips on MST involve transferring. The latter is obviously not true, but MST does not currently have data on what percentage of its trips involve transfers, so it is useful as a conservative estimate.
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New Bus Stops
Most bus lines included in this plan would run
on the same streets as existing MST service,
and would be expected to use the same bus
stops. However, some lines would operate
on streets where MST does not currently
operate, or operates in a different pattern
(e.g. one-way vs. two-way). As a result, MST
will need to go through a process to:
• Propose bus stop locations, in places
where the planned service pattern requires
new or changed stops.
• Negotiate with the relevant local gov-
ernments in charge of streets to establish
the allowable locations of these stops
and install any necessary ADA-compliant
improvements.
Based on the changes included in the plan, the
project team expects that the greatest number
of new stops will be needed in:
• Salinas, in areas where MST is proposing
entirely new lines and/or restoring service
that has not operated in a number of years.
• Seaside and Marina, specifically the north of
Seaside and south of Marina where service
would reappear on certain streets.
• Pacific Grove, where many areas that cur-
rently receive service on one-way loops
would in future receive two-way service, in
some cases on different streets.
In addition, new bus stops will be required in
Gonzales, Greenfield, Soledad and King City
along the new path of Line 23 and circulator
Lines 31, 32, 33 and 34. However, the planning
for these bus stops has already been taking
place as a follow-up to the South County
Service Plan adopted in early 2021.
Transit Center Operations
The bus network proposed in this plan
includes timed transfers at four key locations:
Salinas Transit Center, Monterey Transit Plaza,
Sand City Station and Carmel Rancho.
Timed transfers can be a great boon for riders,
but some operational planning is required to
make it possible for multiple buses to arrive
at one station and occupy space next to
each other at the same time. This will require
detailed looks into:
• The arrival and departure path of each
route into the timed transfer station.
• The specific gate or stop each route should
be assigned to.
• Whether any changes might be required
to existing operating practices to allow
enough space for all incoming buses.
The challenge may be greatest at Monterey
Transit Plaza, where 5 different lines (1, 2, 7 , 8
and 20) will be scheduled to arrive at the same
time every hour, while MST will also need to
ensure enough space for the Jazz A and B and
Line 94. Currently Monterey Transit Plaza has
only three gates in use, although the physical
space exists to allow for more.
Bus Storage and
Maintenance
MST has existing bus yards in Monterey and
Salinas, and recently opened a brand new facil-
ity in King City. This plan envisions a significant
increase in service in Salinas, where the exist-
ing facility has limited space.
As a result, MST may need to re-think how
certain routes are staged. For example, it may
be necessary to consider staging all buses
for Line 20 in Monterey only and all buses for
Line 23 in King City only, rather than splitting
vehicles between both ends of those routes.
It may also be preferable to designate a single
facility among MST’s bus yard for more heavy-
duty maintenance and rebuilding, when buses
need multiple days of work before getting
back on the road.
Relationship with Intercity
Services
This plan focuses MST mostly on local service.
But people will still need to travel beyond
Monterey County, so it’s important to consider
how MST should connect to intercity services.
Both Amtrak and Greyhound service have
been reduced in the pandemic5, but regional
planning suggests intercity services may
expand in future, with a potential extension of
Caltrain to Salinas and the arrival of new com-
mercial bus companies.
MST expects the main connection point to
future intercity services will be the Salinas
Intermodal Transit Center. This facility includes
the train station and a bus terminal. It is located
1/4-mile north of MST’s Salinas Transit Center,
about a 5 minute walk for most adults.
Given this short distance and limited current
intercity service, this plan would not send any
MST lines into the Intermodal Transit Center.
However, MST may do so in the future, when
intercity service becomes more regular.
Considerations will include:
• Regional connections. MST regional lines
(such as Line 20 to Monterey and Line 23
to King City) may be a higher priority for
intercity connections, because they would
connect many communities to the intercity
network.
• Operability in the schedule. Sending a
bus from MST’s Salinas Transit Center to the
Intermodal Transit Center and back requires
at least 5 minutes. This limits which lines can
connect to long-distance buses and trains
while maintaining the timed transfer system.
5 At time of writing, Greyhound offered 1-2 bus departures per day from Salinas, and Amtrak offered 1 train departure per day.
Timelines for restoration to pre-COVID service levels are unclear.