Services will be reduced on nearly a dozen bus lines, as the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District faces a $5.8 million budget shortfall next year.
The board voted unanimously at its May 5 meeting to reduce nearly 3.6% of its transit services.
The changes will go into effect on August 17.
On Lines 1 (West Santa Barbara) and 2 (East Santa Barbara) riders will now have to wait 20 minutes for the next ride instead of 15.
Lines 3 (Oak Park), 4 (Mesa/SBCC), 17 (Lower West SB/SBCC) and 5 (Mesa/La Cumbre) will reduce their Saturday service to match Sunday’s schedules, so buses will leave later and end earlier by roughly one to two hours.
Trips will be eliminated on several lines including: the last weekday outbound trip on line 7 (Goleta Old Town), one weekday and Saturday morning roundtrip on line 14 (Montecito) and the outbound trip on line 23 (El Encanto Heights), inbound trip on line 25 (Ellwood/Winchester Canyon) and inbound trip on line 11 (UCSB) on the last weekday. These were ultimately deemed as “lower performing trips” by the agency’s planning staff.
The Alpha Resource Center Booster Line 2010, which begins at the Transit Center and ends at Alpha Resource Center, will be eliminated by June 15, 2026.
Staff from the Alpha Resource Center, which serves individuals with intellectual and development disabilities, is working on making transportation arrangements for those who use the service. Gina Stabile, the center’s director of programs, told the News-Press that the new arrangements “worked out great, if not better” for the participants.
According to Stabile, only two people regularly use the service.
Staff presented the proposed changes to MTD’s Board of Directors on March 17, 2026 in its FY 2026-2027 draft service plan.
Throughout April, planning staff conducted three in-person service change meetings in Carpinteria, Goleta and Santa Barbara, which were “better attended than usual,” the May 5 staff report states. A bilingual survey was also sent out which received 131 responses.
Staff presented findings from community outreach to the Board in May, which found mixed results: some respondents viewed the changes as reasonable, while others were concerned the changes would lengthen their total trip time, according to the staff report.
When considering which services to reduce, planning staff looked at factors like ridership, coverage of neighborhoods, frequency and span of service.
Apart from the reductions, the Board approved planning additional service areas to Carpinteria and Santa Barbara for the Wave on-demand microtransit service.
