In August, SamTrans plans to roll out the fourth and final phase of its “Reimagine” schedule redesign.  A few of these changes are intended to improve connections to regional services.

An updated version of Route 249, which serves the College of San Mateo, is intended to provide a better transfer to and from downtown San Mateo Caltrain.  This will be helpful for community college students and staff. This fall, when Caltrain rolls out electric service, Caltrain’s new schedule will be more convenient to connect to. 

Similarly, an updated version of Route 118 on the coastside is designed to provide faster, limited stop service between Pacifica/Linda Mar and BART in Daly City. 

SamTrans’ plans for connections in Downtown San Francisco are less clear. SamTrans is considering consolidating routes serving downtown San Francisco at Salesforce Transit Center. However, it may choose to only bring the express routes FCX and EPX into Salesforce Transit Center, and to have the local routes 292 and 397 stop on Mission Street within a 10 minute walk of Salesforce Transit Center. 

Providing the Salesforce Transit Center stop for the SF services seems less confusing and easier to use, especially for new riders trying to figure out how to get between San Francisco and San Mateo County.  What do you think?

Connections between agencies will soon become more affordable when the region rolls out free transfers between local/local and local/regional services with the upcoming release of Clipper 2.0. Unfortunately, that release previously scheduled for late summer has been delayed. It will make these trips more convenient and affordable when it happens.  

Overall, the improved network resulting from the major Reimagine initiative includes 12% more service compared to 2019, with more frequent service on 15 routes – bringing 185,000 more residents and 125,000 more jobs within a 5-min walk of frequent service.