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Cheri Parr
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It's standing room only on Route 17. This picture was taken at Strawflower Village.
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Route 17 stretches from Pescadero in the south to Seton Coastside Medical Center in Moss Beach in the north.
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UPDATE: The County Times has a story on this situation with plenty of additional detail, including an interview with Superintendent Bayless. I also believe there will be a story in today’s Half Moon Bay Review.
Students from Half Moon Bay High School and Cunha Intermediate School who have no other way of getting home are crowding onto SamTrans buses designed for 20 passengers. The nonprofit agency that operates the buses for SamTrans says unless it can get some help with the extra passengers, kids and adults will be left behind.
The problem has its roots in the Cabrillo Unified School District’s decision to discontinue bus service, but the district says it’s not their problem.
Many of the students live in the Moonridge affordable housing project for agricultural workers south of Half Moon Bay, and have no other way of getting home.
The buses are operated by Coastside Opportunity Center, a nonprofit agency serving the poor, elderly, and disabled. COC operates bus service from Pescadero to Moss Beach under a contract with SamTrans.
Some kids have been walking to earlier stops further north in order to get a seat on the southbound bus.
“When I learned this was going on, we added the second bus in the morning and afternoon,” said Cheri Parr, Executive Director of the Coastside Opportunity Center since October. [Disclosure: Cheri is my wife.] The extra buses have alleviated the problems in the morning, but has unexpectedly encouraged more students who’d given up on getting a ride to try again. The result is more unmet demand in the afternoon.
Parr appealed to the Cabrillo Unified School District for assistance with the problem, but she was turned away. She was told the district has chosen not to spend its money on transportation. CUSD has not provided school bus service since 2002. The district does bus elementary school students from Moonridge to Farallone View Elementary in Montara. Superintendent Dr. John Bayless was unavailable when Coastsider called for comment this afternoon.
The cost of the additional bus is being borne by COC. “We don’t have the equipment, drivers, or budget to add any more buses when they’re needed,” said Cheri Parr. “And we can’t overcrowd the ones we have. Our first priority has to be the safety of the passengers.” The result is that beginning Monday, February 27, the afternoon bus will allow no more than twenty total passengers and everyone else will have to wait for the next bus, about 90 minutes later, or walk.
The Coastside Opportunity Center’s Parr plans to bring this problem before the CUSD board at a future meeting.
Time for a mini-celebration: This is the 1,000th article posted on Coastsider since we launched in 2004. Our second anniversary is coming up soon as well. More on that later.
Recently, I appeared before the interview committee for the SamTrans Coastside Public Board Member seat. I mentioned to the committee that the 294 bus schedule was not properly synchronized with the CUSD school schedules. This article points out that there are capacity issues with the 17 as well. Here is what I sent to the SamTrans board.
Members of the SamTrans Board,
At my board interview yesterday, I discussed potential changes to the 294 schedule with the interview team so as to make the morning 294 Southbound (Linda Mar to Hillsdale run) more useable for the students (and faculty) from Montara, Moss Beach and El Granada to get to Half Moon Bay High School and Cunha Intermediate School (both around Main & Kelly). (There is a separate elementary school up in El Granada).
Since the CUSD stopped running their buses, the traffic problems emanating from the High School and the Middle School have spread throughout the city - no one wants to be on the roads during school drop-off and pick-up times. Our traffic, which used to be really bad during the summer peak months, now is also bad during the off-peak school months. So getting students, parents and teachers off the road would be a very good thing for the Coastside.
The current schedule has the 294 leaving Main/7th in Montara at 7.40 and arriving at Main/Kelly in Half Moon Bay at 8.04. Unfortunately, take a look at the High School schedule :
Period A 6:50-7:40 AM Period 1: 7:45-8:42 AM Period 2: 8:47-9:44 AM Brunch: 9:44-9:54 AM Period 3: 9:59-10:56 AM Period 4: 11:01 AM-12:00 PM Lunch: 12:00-12:40 PM Period 6: 12:45-1:42 PM Period 7: 1:47-2:44 PM
I’m going to assume that Period A is for special activities - but Period 1 appears to be when school starts and so an 8.04 arrival is 20 minutes late. The students would probably exit the bus at one of the Highway 1 bus stops so that takes about 5 minutes off, but then you need to add 5-10 minutes to walk to the school and get settled. So pushing the schedule back about 20-30 minutes would make it useable for the students.
Likewise with departures - the afternoon Northbound (Hillsdale to Linda Mar run) leaves Main/Kelly at 3.29 which is 45 minutes after school lets out. That’s not bad and probably stimulates some commerce downtown, but I know that when I got out of school, I wouldn’t want to hang around for 45 minutes for the bus EVERY DAY. In fact, when I took the RTD #56 when I was in high school, they adjusted the schedule so that the bus came about 15 minutes after school let out. Again, pushing the schedule back about 20-30 minutes would make it more convenient for the students.
I’ve copied Roy Salume, a Cabrillo Unified School District Board member, and Jim Grady, a Half Moon Bay City Concil member, on this email for them to provide their own inputs on this as well.
Thanks again for the time you are spending on the Coastside board member appointment.
Sincerely, Joe Falcone