At its board meeting this week Tuesday, SFMTA is now considering minimal changes to its program regulating private shuttles, after a study showed that big changes would result in shifting up to half of shuttle commuters to solo driving.  The study estimated that changing to a hub system would put between 1780 and 3300 commuters back on the road in private cars.

The study showed that about 9,800 people use commuter shuttles each day to and from San Francisco.  An estimated 34,000 people use private commuter shuttles around the Bay Area on a daily basis.

Given the dramatic increase in traffic, pollution, collisions, and enforcement costs from a hub system, the SFMTA is now considering much smaller changes, modifying a popular Shuttle boarding area on Divisadero. SFMTA proposes to remove the Muni stop at the northeast corner of Divisadero Street and California Street from the commuter shuttle network and replace it with a zone at the northeast corner of Divisadero Street and Bush Street.

The private commuter shuttles fill a vacuum in the public transit system, which has shied away from express bus service, which is costly to provide because buses and drivers are employed in short periods of the day and idle the rest of the time, and is a challenge to provide because most Shuttle routes cut across service territories of multiple county transit agencies.

Now, however, SamTrans is starting an express bus study exploring opportunities for public express bus service on the 101 corridor, which would complement and benefit from the “managed lanes” being studied for 101, that would reserve lanes for buses, carpools, and possibly toll-paying solo drivers.