After two years of public outreach, negotiations with bus drivers, and an untold number of draft plans, AC Transit’s service-wide line changes will finally take effect on Sunday morning, Aug. 10.
The plan, known as AC Transit Realign, changes the frequency of some routes, adds new ones, and removes others, all in the name of providing what the agency describes as more balanced service throughout the East Bay. In all, a total of 104 lines have been introduced or redesigned.
“Realign right-sizes our bus network to directly respond to hybrid and remote work patterns, shifting ridership, and resulting fiscal challenges, while remaining flexible to meet the evolving travel needs of East Bay riders,” the agency said in an August 4 press release.
Current AC Transit service and ridership are at 85% of where they were before the pandemic, and with declining sales tax revenues and lower ridership, the agency needed to adjust its business. AC Transit is facing a $41.5 million shortfall for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
The implementation of Realign was postponed a few times, over concerns that the proposed modifications were too disruptive to popular lines, that riders hadn’t been adequately warned about them, and that the preferences of bus drivers hadn’t been taken into account.
Each time, AC Transit’s board of directors directed route planners to tweak their plans. They were finally approved last year.
The new lines aim to increase ridership without having to add more drivers.
The agency’s inability to hire new drivers, according to public testimony by bus drivers over the last two years, had forced the current drivers to work longer and miss out on bathroom and meal breaks, leading to burnout. One driver said at a transit board meeting last year that they knew of at least one colleague who wore diapers as an extreme preventative measure due to an overwhelming schedule that didn’t allow them to stop.
Jack Watkins, a driver for the NL Line that runs from East Oakland through Downtown Oakland and into San Francisco, said in an email thread with the People’s Transit Alliance that his two scheduled breaks at 4:52 and 6:07 p.m. were still only 13 minutes long as of today. They both tend to end up shorter because they land in the middle of rush hour, when schedules are often delayed. The NL schedule remains untouched in the new plan.
Laurel Paget-Seekins, a public advocate whose firm represents the driver’s union, said that drivers “hope the transition to new routes goes smoothly,” but that they still have concerns about the new routes and schedules.
“AC Transit still hasn’t shown there is adequate time in the schedules for bus operators,” she said. “And they haven’t done a proper equity analysis to show whether this new service plan fixes lower weekend service levels in communities of color that they identified in 2023 and promised federal regulators they would fix in this plan.”
AC Transit produces a report every three years to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which the Federal Transit Administration requires of localities that receive federal and state transit funds. In the agency’s 2023 report, the agency revealed that there were “statistically significant” differences between the weekend headways — or time between buses — for service routes serving minority and non-minority populations.
R. Paul Marcelin, an AC Transit rider and Alameda native, pointed out to The Oaklandside that the agency will eliminate the 376 Line, which was created years ago to serve UPS drivers leaving the company’s Richmond plant as late as 3 a.m.
“The 376 was a rare case of adapting transit to present-day socioeconomic and employment trends,” he said. “AC Transit introduced it to much fanfare, years ago.”
“We know that no choice to cut service is easy, but we remain concerned about shortcomings with the agency’s equity analysis and about the missed opportunity to address the scheduling issues hurting operator work conditions,” said Carter Lavin, the cofounder of Transbay Coalition, a transit advocacy organization that is active across the nine counties of the Bay Area.
The final service changes may frustrate many riders because they entail no significant service expansion.
Near the beginning of its outreach process, in 2023, the agency asked customers whether they wanted to see “balanced,” “frequent,” or “unconstrained” visions of the service. Most people wanted the unconstrained version, with more buses and more frequent service.
AC Transit planners did adjust to some strong feedback from riders, though. One draft plan removed the popular 72R line on San Pablo Avenue, which crosses Oakland, Berkeley, Albany, Richmond, and El Cerrito, without substituting a similar alternative. The final plan replaces the 72R line with a new one, the 72L, which serves the same area but at a slower frequency — every 30 minutes instead of every 15 minutes.
Several other lines were hit with similar compromises, and it’ll be up to riders to provide feedback to the agency as to whether the plan is effective.
Below, we’ve summarized the changes to the agency’s 20 most popular lines, according to AC Transit data from June.
If any significant route or schedule changes are not included here, or if there is a stop that is not working for riders, please let us know. The agency says that it will add notices to each of the old stops to inform people where they can now pick up their bus.
Changes to the most-used lines
1T Line: 14,784 average daily riders
No changes — but riders who wanted more frequent service won’t get it.
51A, 51B Lines: 10,244 total average daily riders
Minimal changes will be made to these critical lines connecting Oakland’s Chinatown, Alameda, and Berkeley, and passing along major roads such as Broadway and College Avenue. The timing will change by a few minutes in both directions in the evenings.
72R, 72 M, 72 Lines: 9,693 total average daily riders
No significant changes to the 72, but each trip will now end at Contra Costa College.
People living or working on the San Pablo Avenue corridor will experience a big change to the 72 Lines, one of the most popular bus route clusters. That significant change, as noted above, will be the replacement of the 72R, for rapid, with the 72L, for limited — or is that lento? — moving to a 30-minute service on the same stops and route.
40 Line: 5,521 average daily riders
Minor changes, including the addition of a minute or two to departures. On weekends, service to Bay Fair BART will begin 30 minutes earlier, at 5:35 a.m.
57 Line: 4,952 average daily riders
The trip from the MacArthur BART station to the Emeryville Public Market on weekdays now starts 10 minutes later, at 4:41 a.m. There are other minor scheduling changes.
6 Line: 3,892 average daily riders
The Monday through Friday and the Sunday schedules remain the same, but there will be “minor” schedule changes on Saturdays, according to AC Transit.
18 Line: 3,768 average daily riders
This line will have a significant route change. The old version went from University Village in Albany along Martin Luther King Jr. all the way to Oakland Chinatown and the Lake Merritt BART and back. The line will now continue to use MLK but also go partly through Broadway, get near the same BART station, and end up in Montclair. This change is to serve Montclair passengers who used to take Line 33, which is ending. For weekday trips between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., the frequency will improve from every 16 minutes to every 15 minutes.
14 Line: 2,929 average daily riders
According to AC Transit, service “will begin earlier and run later, until midnight daily.” On the weekend, service will be increased from every 30 minutes to every 20 minutes until 7 p.m.
97 Line: 2,606 average daily riders
AC Transit says that there will be minor changes to this line, and no significant route changes.
12 Line: 2,448 average daily riders
Weekday service will begin earlier, and weekend service will run later. Frequency on weekday trips between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. will improve to every 20 minutes. Frequency after hours and on weekends will remain every 30 minutes.
10 Line: 2,385 average daily riders
99 Line: 2,299 average daily riders
33 Line: 2,260 average daily riders
20 Line: 1,973 average daily riders
All of these well-used lines will end. They will either be replaced by new lines or their service will be integrated into other lines.
Line 10’s service will be taken up by the new Line 9 between E. 14th Street in San Leandro and Mission Boulevard in Union City. Line 99’s service between the Union City BART and the Fremont BART will also be taken up by Line 9, while its service between Decoto Road in Union City and Walnut Avenue in Fremont will be taken up by the new Line 211.
Line 33’s old service, as noted above, will be taken up partly by the rerouting of Line 18, while people who took Line 33 between Downtown Oakland and Piedmont will now have to take the new Line 88, and kids who took it between Oakland High and MacArthur Boulevard will need to take the new Line 633.
As for Line 20, most of its service will be replaced by the new Line 30.
62 Line: 1,907 average daily riders
The frequency of this line has been increased to every 20 minutes from every 30 minutes on the weekend.
73 Line: 1,819 average daily riders
The 73 Line service that took people back and forth in the wee hours between 1 and 4 a.m. from the Eastmont Center to the Oakland Airport is gone. At other times, the line will continue to operate but at a slower frequency, reduced from every 15 minutes to every 20 minutes.
52 Line: 1,809 average daily riders
52 Line service will now end at midnight on weekdays and will start earlier on weekends.
Several new lines launched
Several new lines launch on Aug. 10: 9, 22, 27, 30, 31, 72L, 211, 231, and 281.
More than a dozen lines removed and replaced
The following lines, many of them offering specialized service, will no longer exist, with portions of their routes absorbed into other lines: 10, 20, 21, 29, 33, 72R, 79, 99, 212, 215, 217, 232, 376, LA, and OX.
