College of San Mateo has announced that they will be ending the Hayward-Pacifica shuttle route on Friday, Feb. 27.

The shuttle route served as a way for students to travel from the Hayward BART station to CSM and from Pacifica to CSM. It is the second route available for students. The main one being the Millbrae BART-Hillsdale route, which picks students up from the Millbrae BART station and from the Hillsdale CalTrain station.

The route became available last fall for students who needed to travel across the San Mateo Bridge or over the hill from Pacifica. Jonathan Wax, CSM’s interim director of community relations and marketing, said that the route was a test to see if more East Bay and Pacifica students would use the route compared to other modes of transportation. He said that, over the course of the semester, ridership for the route was low. As a result, the administration decided to cancel the route, and put their efforts towards existing modes of transportation such as SamTrans and CalTrain.

The low ridership could be seen firsthand, when The Skyline View attempted to speak with riders of the route, there were none that could be found.

Shuttle driver Marcos Elvir, who works for the third party company that provides the drivers for the shuttles, said that in the fall, there were way more students using the shuttle route. 

“When they started, they used to have a lot, about 15 per trip,” Elvir said. “So it will be 15 from Hayward, 15 from Half Moon Bay, but then I don’t know why they stopped using it.”

Elvir said that now he usually has between five and 10 passengers per trip, and that’s on a good day. When we spoke with Elvir, he said that he only had one passenger from the time he traveled from Hayward to Pacifica in the morning.

CSM student Nash Manalili, who rides the Millbrae BART-Hillsdale route, said that the shuttle is still successful when looking at the ridership for the main route. He said that it has been a very helpful resource for him.

“It is definitely the most convenient and comfy way for me to get to school and the most affordable,” Manalili said.

CSM is now pushing alternatives for students who were taking the route. CSM SparkPoint is giving away free Way2Go SamTrans bus passes. SamTrans still has its fixed routes that go to CSM, and another option is SamTrans Ride Plus, which is an on-demand service for students on the coast.

Wax also mentioned that, with CSM planning to break ground, another future mode of transportation would be a shuttle that travels between all three campuses.

“The district is exploring a future shuttle that would connect all three SMCCCD colleges,” Wax said.

It is unclear whether the route will ever return. Wax said that the CSM administration is always looking for ways to improve their transportation services. He added that students looking to share their feedback can share it through their student government bodies.