I think its actually a perfect candidate for a streetcar and Broadway should have been where they put BART instead of in the middle of the freeway. I bet by now Ridership would have been up about 60,000 with the different land use and connections. But I digress.

The 51 is actually an extremely popular line – it has the 2nd highest ridership of AC, after the 1/1R line. But it’s also a very long line stretching from Alameda down to the waterfront in West Berkeley. From my experience riding the 51, few ride the bus all the way. When I ride from downtown Oakland to Rockridge, it’s generally packed most of the way but is less full by the time it reaches BART. But once it reaches Berkeley, many riders board and it is usually pretty full from Ashby all the way down into West Berkeley. So just because you don’t see lots of riders on a bus at a given spot doesn’t mean the line isn’t heavily used.

In fact, I think 51 service needs to be expanded (specifically, we desperately need a 51 rapid bus).

I think current AC Transit service is good, but not always great. We need more service – especially more rapid buses and dedicated lines for BRT. Major service cuts would be devastating to the system.

If you want to see the details of ridership per line, check out the February AC Transit memo.

Also, I think it’s safe to say that most people don’t ride the bus simply to be “delivered” to a BART station so it’s not that surprising that you don’t see many people on the bus there. However, at the downtown Oakland BART stations, I see full buses passing by and anywhere from 1-10 people boarding each bus as it pulls up.

Isn’t that the real problem?

I can envision 2 solutions areas that don’t involve fee increases: temporarily reducing level of service, and longer term solving the crime problem in Oakland that I predict will result in increasing ridership, allowing a return to higher levels of service. We have a great network of public transportation, especially when connecting to all the access BART gives you. Do you think more people would be willing to walk on our streets and take buses if they felt safe to do so? In a period of about 10 years, New York reduced their violent crime rate by 80%. In Oakland, between 2000 and 2006, the violent crime rate increase by 51%.

Do you think our out of control crime problem is weighing down a transportation system where huge buses pass by with an average 6 riders? And that’s for a bus that delivers people to the BART station, at rush hour. How much more valuable a route can there be?

Personally, I used to ride my bike for about half my trips within north Oakland and Berkeley. I have quit because the risk of crime is simply too high to be worth it. I don’t think people are fully aware as to how the high crime has affected us in Oakland. And, perhaps, it’s why Nadel is so nervous and hyperactive of late. She should be, if people in her district have any sense at all, they’ll vote for Sean Sullivan.

Amazing how attentive elected officials become when it’s election time…

Nice, thorough report. Since I almost never take the bus (I walk or bike instead), I admit that I don’t pay much attention to AC Transit, but I’m glad to know that other people are, because it’s definitely important.