AC Transit has permanently cut service to some bus stops in downtown Oakland on weekend nights as part of a “detour” meant to respond to safety issues and crowded streets.
UPDATE on March 7
Starting March 3, the transit agency instructed drivers to detour away from Broadway between 14th Street and Thomas L. Berkley/20th Street in both directions from 9 p.m. until 5:45 a.m. The detour affects lines 6, 12, 18, 33, 51A, 72, and 72M and the fast 1T Tempo bus service.
Due to this change, buses bypass four stops on the southbound side of Broadway and three stops northbound. The buses detour to Franklin Street and Webster Street where there aren’t stops for passengers to get on or off in this part of downtown.
The change surprised people waiting for the bus Sunday night, the first night of the permanent change. Some riders said they were unaware of the service reduction. Signs put up by AC Transit to notify riders about the detour were not visible enough, others said.
A group of UC Berkeley students waiting at the Telegraph and Broadway stop for the Line 18 southbound bus told The Oaklandside the detours were “unfair ” because they affect people coming out of restaurants, bars, and other nightlife and it will make it especially difficult for disabled people to get to a bus stop. The students had taken the Line 18 bus to a restaurant earlier in the evening.
“If you’re in a wheelchair, the accessibility is not great to go five blocks away,” one person said.
Another student said they received a service notice on their AC Transit app but hadn’t paid attention because it wasn’t labeled as important.
AC Transit fixed a sign announcing the change to the backside of the bus stop at Broadway and Telegraph. A yellow informational label explaining the changes was also placed at the top of the pole, about 10 feet from the ground. According to AC Transit, these route signs were up for months.
AC Transit says the service change is due to double-parked cars and “safety concerns”
The students and a Spanish-speaking person who works downtown who were waiting at the stop said they wanted to know why AC Transit changed the service.
District 3 Oakland Councilmember Carroll Fife, who represents the area where the service change is being implemented, sent a letter to AC Transit Board President Joel Young and General Manager Michael Hursh last week, asking them to explain the detour. Fife said the city’s investment in bus-only lanes on Broadway necessitated their use and noted service suspension would “negatively impact” businesses.
“I am disappointed that my office was not engaged prior to this decision so that I could help facilitate robust community engagement. I have heard from constituents regarding the need to improve nighttime transit operations Downtown. This plan is not it,” she said.
In an email thread shared with The Oaklandside, Hursh replied to Fife that the “Downtown Weekend detour” has been “in place since August 2022,” when the Oakland police asked AC Transit to close the Broadway stops for three months, a timeline that was expanded until June 2023 because of “ongoing safety and service reliability concerns” that included shootings. During that time, the OPD closed the street on those blocks with police vehicles. OPD reopened the street in the Summer of 2023. But AC Transit continued to detour on this part of Broadway on some weekend nights for the rest of the year, even though the detour was not reflected on the official bus schedules, confusing riders.
“The Broadway detours have been in effect during the weekends for approximately 18 months due to unsafe conditions on Broadway for both riders and AC Transit operations staff, which include road blockages, illegally parked vehicles, people in the street, side shows, gunshots, and dangerous reveler behavior,” Hursh said.
The AC Transit general manager also said that the bus drivers union supports the weekend detours and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office “recently reaffirmed the recommendation.”
The Oaklandside reached out to the union about this change and has not heard back.
AC Transit has not said if and when the detour will end. Hursh said in an email to Councilmember Fife that the agency’s communications in the past involved “bagging” signs for the closed bus stops but that they will re-evaluate whether the signs are visible enough.
Fife asked AC Transit officials to reconsider the detours since OPD told her that it has not needed to close Broadway due to crime or other disturbances since October.
Some AC Transit board members and businesses oppose the change
AC Transit Board Member Sarah Syed told The Oaklandside she only became aware of the service change when she saw a Feb. 22 Facebook post from AC Transit explaining the detour. Syed said she opposes the Broadway detour because it is inequitable for people who work in restaurants, bars, and other downtown establishments at night, and because there was little to no public outreach, including no notice to the AC Transit Board before the change was finalized. This past weekend, Syed walked around the area, speaking to riders, AC Transit bus drivers, police officers, and business owners after 9 p.m.
“Operation Ceasefire is back, and it seems like things are better. A staff member of the Fox Theater was passed up by a bus while waiting to go home after working a late show. A group of six people were passed by the Tempo bus on Broadway and 14th Street heading south. No one is happy,” she said.
Syed said she spoke with AC Transit supervisors who welcomed the change and told her the bus service was impacted by too many people on the street at night. But the board member said that meant the agency should serve them as customers rather than make them get an Uber or a Lyft car service. She wants to call for an emergency board meeting to talk detours.
“More buses run on Broadway than on any other street in Oakland. Deciding not to run buses at night on Broadway without any public process is unacceptable,” she said. “People with disabilities, workers, residents, BART riders, concertgoers, and many more count on AC Transit to not leave them behind.”
Christian Peeples, an AC Transit board member who uses a wheelchair, said he does not want the board to meddle with operations decisions by AC Transit management and that the detours are not a new or controversial issue.
“Conditions on Broadway made it unsafe for anyone, and [that’s why] OPD closed down Broadway in 2022. They put up K-rails so no one could [drive fast] on the street,” he said in a phone call. Some of those K-rails are still in place. “Deciding on detours is something that is a management function. Board members cannot get involved in it. Former boards got criticized for micromanaging the district,” he said.
Peeples said the issue that needs to be addressed is how the agency communicated the change to its customers.
A coalition of 17 businesses and community organizations, mostly safe streets or environmental justice advocates, also sent a letter to AC Transit last week urging the agency to reconsider the detours. They included Transform, Bike East Bay, Transbay Coalition, immigration attorney John Flanagan, and the Oakland Heritage Alliance.
“This sudden and severe reduction in access to service in the core of Oakland without warning or public hearings will make people less safe, hurt workers, hurt businesses, hurt the environment, hurt Oakland’s economic recovery, and hurt the city’s tax revenue derived from the economic activity on this vital corridor,” the group stated.
An AC Transit bus driver that The Oaklandside spoke to Sunday night told us that the detour was “simple” and that it was beneficial to go around Broadway sometimes because of how crowded the street can get on weekend nights.
