Santa Maria City Council approves consolidation of bus routes

The Santa Maria City Council in California approved the consolidation of Santa Marie Regional Transit’s (SMRT) Breeze Bus Routes 100 and 200 and New Cuyama inter-community bus routes as local fixed routes, starting on July 1. New bus schedules will be provided. SMRT will continue to administer the routes though its usual federal, state and City Council sanctioned process.

On July 1, the regional routes will be rebranded as SMRT's Routes 20 to Los Alamos/Solvang/Chumash, Route 30 to Vandenberg/Lompoc and Route 50 to New Cuyama. These routes will accept SMRT bus passes and start to see SMRT-branded vehicles deployed in their service. Similarly, SMRT will fully integrate labor, fleet, ridership figures, revenues and costs to maximize efficiency and better distribute fleet wear between all its services while making data gathering, service planning and federal/state reporting more efficient.

"We are excited to consolidate the inter-community routes with our local transit services, as this will help us expedite service improvements to the regional services, such as enhancing the schedules, better coordination among transit services, establishing fare uniformity across systems, faster onboarding of rider-centric technologies, improving the reliability with the greater access to pooled labor and fleet resources, the electrification of the fleet and simplification of service for the rider," said Santa Maria Transit Service Manager Gamaliel Anguiano.

SMRT will oversee the operational costs using a combination of state and federal funding sources, as well as the continued off-the-top apportionment of the county's allocation of Transit Development Act state funding to support transit service to unincorporated parts of northern Santa Barbara County.

The move is expected to improve transit services in the Santa Maria/northern Santa Barbara County region and provide riders with a more seamless and efficient experience.