Public transit is an important city resource for any functioning metropolitan area, but you should not have to live in San Francisco to meet your basic needs. The San Mateo County bus system — SamTrans — has not been rider friendly in Pacifica for years and has not improved its service. For many Skyline College students, getting to campus by SamTrans is already a difficult task, let alone College of San Mateo or Cañada College, but what if I told you it did not have to be this way.
Last year, The Skyline View published an Editorial that turned the solution onto SamTrans. However SamTrans has nothing to gain from creating a long route from Skyline to CSM because it is less directed to the general public and more towards college students.
The solution should be that the San Mateo County Community College District SMCCCD funds a bus system that can bring students directly to each college. The three campuses offer different specific programs, therefore the district should value this idea in order to improve accessibility to any students. Note that this idea wouldn’t be 100% district funded, students should pay a small fare like SamTrans or Muni to help cover the cost of the program and be offered free passes if needed.
A skeptic’s solution would be to take online classes, however that isn’t an option for trades and face-to-face classes. Skyline students may not have access to cars and solely rely on SamTrans to get from place to place. While hour-long trips are normal for people who take the bus, multiple bus trips can lead to many errors such as missing transfers or the bus being late.
An underserved area of Pacifica, Linda Mar, cannot arrive to Cañada’s campus before 8 a.m., the earliest arrival time being about 8:30 a.m. This is also assuming the student lives nearby the Linda Mar Shopping Center bus stop, as people who live in the valley may have a different story. Similarly, students near the Fairmont Shopping Center in Pacifica would need to be at the 112 Colma Bart bus stop before 5:30 a.m. to catch both Bart and Caltrain to be on time for another bus that will arrive at Cañada. Did you get all of that? Two buses and two trains to go about 20 miles or a 30 minute car ride. Accessibility couldn’t be any worse than this!
Having a route strictly for the three colleges for students would minimize any of these issues. If you make it to a campus then you can get on the district bus. This is not a perfect solution, by all means, and may still be inaccessible to some; however, it is a start. The most optimal route for a bus to take would be to go from Skyline, CSM, and last stop at Cañada, vice versa. This route would take about 30 minutes by car, taking into account wait times to get onto the bus and other factors, the whole trip could be about an hour or less from one end to the other. Getting to the colleges couldn’t be any easier.
