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![]() Temporary METRO Center in downtown Santa Cruz | |
Headquarters | 110 Vernon Street Santa Cruz, California |
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Service area | Santa Cruz County |
Service type | |
Stations | Amtrak – METRO Center/RiverFront Station, 603 Front St., Santa Cruz 36°58′26″N122°01′26″W / 36.97385000431214°N 122.02378371556136°W |
Daily ridership | 14,800 (weekdays, Q1 2024) [1] |
Annual ridership | 3,650,300 (2023) [2] |
Website | scmtd |
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 14,800 per weekday as of the first quarter of 2024.
Santa Cruz METRO also operates the Highway 17 Express service for Amtrak Thruway between the city of Santa Cruz and San Jose Diridon station, in partnership with Amtrak California and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority.
Santa Cruz METRO was created in 1968 as a special district within Santa Cruz County with taxing authority. [3] Service was initially to the cities of Santa Cruz, Capitola and Live Oak. Santa Cruz METRO extended service to Watsonville, Scotts Valley and the San Lorenzo Valley in 1974.
In 1979, voters approved a measure to change the financing of Santa Cruz METRO from a property tax to a 1/2 cent sales tax.
The Amtrak Thruway Highway 17 Express service between Santa Cruz and San Jose started as an emergency bus service after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake closed Highway 17.
A strike in September 2005 lasted for 35 days and stranded up to 23,000 riders. [4]
In 2011 fixed route service was severely cut then restored mere months later. [5]
In 2012 Santa Cruz METRO received grant funding to construct the Judy K. Souza Operations Facility. [6]
On February 12, 2024, METRO has relocated from the Pacific Metro Center to the new Riverfront Transit Center, which is serving as a temporary transit center until 2026. The existing transit center will be demolished and redeveloped into housing units with a new transit center underneath. [7]
Santa Cruz County, officially the County of Santa Cruz, is a county on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 270,861. The county seat is Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County comprises the Santa Cruz–Watsonville, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area. The county is on the California Central Coast, south of the San Francisco Bay Area region. The county forms the northern coast of the Monterey Bay, with Monterey County forming the southern coast.
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