The Highway 17 Express is an Amtrak Thruway route provided by a consortium of entities that provides regional service between San Jose and Santa Cruz County in the South Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. The service is so called because it travels on California State Route 17. It is operated by the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District.
A temporary commuter express bus service started after landslides from the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake closed Highway 17. [1] [2] At this time the route spanned from Scotts Valley to Santa Clara. In response to the needs of a loyal group of riders, as well as UC Santa Cruz students, Santa Cruz Metro continued the service after Highway 17 reopened.
When service was consolidated with Amtrak Thruway in 2004, the route was extended to the metro center in downtown Santa Cruz and service expanded to 365 days a year. Caltrans anticipated a ridership of 7,000 riders per month at the end of 2004. [3] In December 2007, free wifi service was added to all Highway 17 Express buses. In February 2015, Santa Cruz Metro reported 31,102 total riders, 1,239 on the average weekday, for Highway 17 Express. [4]
The bus service is a consolidation of corridor-based commuter service between Santa Cruz and job centers in the Silicon Valley. It passes through the State Route 17 communities of the Santa Cruz Mountains including Scotts Valley, Redwood Estates, Summit, and Pasatiempo and is combined with feeder and delivery service for several Amtrak lines serving the Diridon Station in San Jose, a regional intermodal hub where passengers may transfer to VTA buses or light rail in addition to ACE, Capitol Corridor, Caltrain, and also many regional Amtrak routes. During the week the service extends beyond the Diridon Station with direct service to downtown San Jose; on weekends it terminates at the station. [5]
One-way fare is $7.00, with half-price fare available for seniors and disabled riders. [6] A day pass that is also good for all VTA bus and light rail as well as Santa Cruz Metro buses is available for $14.00. The VTA EcoPass Express is good for travel on the Highway 17 Express service. Support for purchasing tickets using the Clipper card is not currently supported.
Most buses are equipped with bike racks capable of holding three bicycles. Currently, up to two bicycles are allowed inside the bus in the area used to secure disabled passengers contained within mobility devices, at the coach operator's discretion, only if space is available.
Caltrain is a commuter rail line in California, serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley. The southern terminus is in San Jose at the Tamien station with weekday rush hour service running as far as Gilroy. The northern terminus of the line is in San Francisco at 4th and King Street. Caltrain has express, limited, and local services. There are 28 regular stops, one limited-service weekday-only stop, one weekend and holiday-only stop (Broadway), and one football-only stop (Stanford). While average weekday ridership in 2019 exceeded 63,000, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have been significant: in June 2024, Caltrain had an average weekday ridership of 24,580 passengers.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), branded as Metro, is the county agency that plans, operates, and coordinates funding for most of the public transportation system in Los Angeles County, California, the most populated county in the United States.
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, more commonly known simply as the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), is a special district responsible for public transit services, congestion management, specific highway improvement projects, and countywide transportation planning for Santa Clara County, California. It serves San Jose, California, and the surrounding Silicon Valley. It is one of the governing parties for the Caltrain commuter rail line that serves the county. In 2023, the VTA's public transportation services had a combined ridership of 26,610,000, or about 91,400 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2024.
Amtrak Thruway is a system of through-ticketed transportation services to connect passengers with areas not served by Amtrak trains. In most cases these are dedicated motorcoach routes, but can also be non-dedicated intercity bus services, transit buses, vans, taxis, ferry boats and commuter rail trains.
The Blue Line is a light rail line in Santa Clara County, California, and part of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) light rail system. It serves 26 stations entirely in San Jose proper, traveling between Baypointe and Santa Teresa stations, stopping at San Jose International Airport, Downtown San Jose, San Jose State University, and the Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose along the way. The line connects to Caltrain at Tamien. The Blue Line is one of three lines in the VTA light rail system; the other two being the Green Line and the Orange Line.
San Jose Diridon station is the central passenger rail depot for San Jose, California. It also serves as a major intermodal transit center for Santa Clara County and Silicon Valley. The station is named after former Santa Clara County Supervisor Rod Diridon Sr.
People in the San Francisco Bay Area rely on a complex multimodal transportation infrastructure consisting of roads, bridges, highways, rail, tunnels, airports, seaports, and bike and pedestrian paths. The development, maintenance, and operation of these different modes of transportation are overseen by various agencies, including the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the Association of Bay Area Governments, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. These and other organizations collectively manage several interstate highways and state routes, eight passenger rail networks, eight trans-bay bridges, transbay ferry service, local and transbay bus service, three international airports, and an extensive network of roads, tunnels, and bike paths.
Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District (SCMTD), or simply Santa Cruz METRO, provides bus service throughout Santa Cruz County, California. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 3,650,300, or about 13,000 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2024.
The All Nighter is a night bus service network in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. Portions of the service shadow the rapid transit and commuter rail services of BART and Caltrain, which are the major rail services between San Francisco, the East Bay, the Peninsula, and San Jose. Neither BART nor Caltrain operate owl service due to overnight track maintenance; the All Nighter network helps fill in this service gap. The slogan is, "Now transit stays up as late as you do!"
Santa Clara Transit Center is a railway station in downtown Santa Clara, California. It is served by Caltrain, Amtrak Capitol Corridor, and Altamont Corridor Express (ACE) trains. It is the planned terminus for the Silicon Valley BART extension into Santa Clara County on the future Green and Orange Lines. The former station building, constructed in 1863 by the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad, is used by the Edward Peterman Museum of Railroad History.
The San Benito County Local Transportation Authority (LTA) is the public transportation agency of San Benito County, California, immediately south of Silicon Valley (Santa Clara County). LTA provides fixed route inter-county and intra-city service as San Benito County Express; the Intracounty routes connect destinations in Hollister and San Juan Bautista to Gilroy in Santa Clara County, while the Tripper routes connect destinations within Hollister. LTA also provides demand-responsive dial-a-ride service within selected areas of northern San Benito County as County Express On-Demand.
The VTA light rail system serves San Jose and nearby cities in Santa Clara County, California. It is operated by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) and has 42.2 miles (67.9 km) of network comprising three main lines on standard gauge tracks. Originally opened on December 11, 1987, the light rail system has expanded since then, and currently has 60 stations in operation.
Robert J. Cabral Station, is a railway station in Stockton, California. In 2003, the station building was named in honor of the late Robert J. Cabral, a San Joaquin County supervisor instrumental in the creation of the Altamont Corridor Express (ACE), originally Altamont Commuter Express.
Throughout the history of Bay Area Rapid Transit, there have been plans to extend service to other areas.
The United States is served by a wide array of public transportation, including various forms of bus, rail, ferry, and sometimes, airline services. Most public transit systems are in urban areas with enough density and public demand to require public transportation; most US cities have some form of public transit. In more auto-centric suburban localities, public transit is generally less frequent and less common. Most public transit services in the United States are either national, regional/commuter, or local.
The Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (YARTS) is a public transit bus line based in Merced, California providing scheduled fixed route service between Yosemite National Park and gateway communities. Service operates year-round on Highway 140, providing access to Merced and Mariposa counties. During the peak summer months, additional service is added along Highway 120 providing access to Tuolumne County, Highway 41 providing access to Fresno and Madera counties, and eastern Highway 120/US 395 providing access to Mono County.
Milpitas station, also known as Milpitas Transit Center, is an intermodal transit station located near the intersection of East Capitol Avenue and Montague Expressway in Milpitas, California, United States. The station is served by the Orange and Green lines of Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), the Orange Line of the VTA light rail system, VTA buses, and AC Transit buses.
Berryessa/North San José station is an intermodal transit center located in the Berryessa district of San Jose, California, United States. The station is served by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) buses. The transit center opened for bus service on December 28, 2019, and subsequently for BART service on June 13, 2020. The station is the southern terminus of the Orange and Green lines.
The Monterey County Rail Extension is a planned commuter rail extension that would bring Caltrain passenger service south of its existing Gilroy, California terminus to Salinas in Monterey County, using the existing Coast Line owned by Union Pacific (UPRR). Implementation of the rail extension will occur over three phases, starting from Salinas and moving north. When construction is complete, there will be four trains operated over the extended line per weekday: two northbound trains that depart from Salinas and travel to San Francisco in the morning, and two southbound trains that return to Salinas in the afternoon.
