DO NOT tag the Clipper card if you are a Bishop Ranch employee that rides County Connection for free. If you tag the Clipper card to the card reader on the bus, a fare will be deducted.
The special program between Bishop Ranch and County Connection is not programmed into the regional Clipper system. Please simply use the Bishop Ranch Clipper card as a flash pass as you do now.
ROUTE 93X RIDERS – Starting Sunday, November 1, all buses will be assigned designated stalls at which to board passengers. route specific bus stop flags have been installed at each stop. County Connection 93X has been assigned a specific stall at the eastern end of the station. See attached layout/notice.
The four East Bay bus operators – County Connection, Tri Delta Transit, Wheels and WestCAT will begin accepting Clipper cards for fare payment on Sunday, Nov. 1, 2015.
Learn all the details here
An accident on Sun Valley Blvd and Contra Costa Blvd is impacting traffic in this major intersection, affecting all buses that go up and down Contra Costa Blvd.
Stay tuned for possible detours.
September marks a record month for the amount of CO2 emissions reduced by County Connection passengers who use the bus to make their weekday trips since we began tracking emissions savings in 2013. In September, the people riding County Connection buses reduced CO2 emissions by 34,040 pounds every weekday. That’s over 7,400 pounds per weekday more than in September of 2014.
Each person can make a difference. With the system average trip length (one way) of 5 miles, each person who leaves their car at home and uses the bus will reduce CO2 emissions by 4.6 pounds. One person – one day a week – you do make a difference.
Give us a try! It’s easy…download the free mobile app from our home page to get real time arrival predictions for buses near you. Or sign up to get arrival alerts by text or email message through Bus Tracker – also accessible on the home page.
There is a partial closure on Detroit Ave headed to Pleasant Hill BART due to construction. Bus will turn left on Walters Way and right on Monument Blvd to regular route. No completion time given.
The Route 4 Free Ride Trolley will detour on Saturday, October 17th during the Oktoberfest celebration in downtown Walnut Creek.
From Walnut Creek BART the bus will not travel on Locust and follow the route pattern below:
From WC BART on California Blvd. to Mt. Diablo
Left on Mt. Diablo
Right on S. Broadway to the regular route
Returning to WC BART
Follows the regular route pattern
Update 11:00 – Most of the lanes are open both NB and SB 680, but there are some back ups. Back-ups are slowly recovering. For now if you need information on bus arrivals it’s best to use real time bus tracker http://bustracker.cccta.org/ or the transitapp.com over the printed schedules.
Summer is over, vacations are complete, students are back in school, and commute traffic is back to the unpleasant “normal”. This is often the time when many choose to use public transportation instead of driving every day.
In the month of August, County Connection riders reduced CO2 emissions by 29,413 pounds EACH WEEKDAY. Were you one of them?
Using County Connection’s average trip length (one way) of 5 miles, each person who leaves their car at home and uses the bus will reduce CO2 emissions by 4.6 pounds. Riding just one day a week will make a difference.
Did you ever wonder how County Connection services are made possible? There’s a reason why we can’t just establish a bus line anywhere in our service area; we have to operate within very tight budget constraints, while maximizing service to the best of our abilities. If YOU had the choice, where would you place County Connection bus lines? For a limited time, you actually have the opportunity to be a bus planner for a day and vote for where you would like to see local transit services in Contra Costa. Your suggestions may be included in a long-term Transportation Expenditure Plan (TEP).
Your specific votes for County Connection are especially vital. As a public service, County Connection is funded much like any other governmental service. That is, County Connection is heavily supported by taxes of various kinds. While about 16 to 18 percent of the total annual operating budget at County Connection comes from the fares riders pay, the bulk of the funding comes from federal, state and local funding. Of these, local funding is by far the largest piece. This funding as a whole makes up the operating budget (labor, fuel, insurance, maintenance, marketing, utilities, etc.).
County Connection also has a Capital Improvement Program that is largely funded by federal grants, as well as local match funding. Capital grants can only be used for particular expenses, and are largely used to replace the buses and vans in a timely manner. We are also allowed to use capital funding to maintain the maintenance facility where the buses are stored, fueled, and maintained. Federal grants used for these approved purposes are fairly reliable, as long as we have a federal transportation program. The Senate just passed a new six-year re-authorization that maintains this federal commitment to public transit (as well as the federal commitment to highways). That legislation will be taken up in the House this fall.
Let’s look more closely at the operating budget, and the revenues that support it. Of the taxes that sustain our operations, roughly 3 percent comes from federal sources, about 9 percent comes from state sources, and the rest – about 70-72 percent – is locally sourced. That’s right, approximately 70 percent or more of the County Connection operating revenue must come from local tax sources.
In fact, the trend for suburban transit systems, like County Connection, is to see more of its support come from local sources, as the federal and state governments re-orient their support for public transit towards the larger and more urban systems.
For example, the federal authorization that just expired saw a multi-billion dollar shift away from a funding program that largely benefitted smaller urban and suburban bus systems to a new program that benefits older large heavy rail systems – primarily in places like Chicago, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, the state of California seems to be transitioning their approach to funding public transit to one that is heavily tied to the new Cap and Trade based greenhouse gas reduction programs. Areas like Contra Costa County are not doing well under Cap and Trade-based programs because of our relatively good air quality. In short, lately our share of state transit funding is trending downward.
This means, as we move forward, County Connection and other similar systems are going to become more and more reliant on local funding sources. In recognition of this expectation, the Contra Costa Transportation Authority is currently working on developing its potential plan (TEP) for transportation projects funded by a future Contra Costa County tax measure.
This is where YOU come in. County Connection could greatly benefit by new funding through such a measure to improve transit services where they are needed most. Be a part of Contra Costa Transportation Authority’s public input to help prioritize what projects and programs should be included in the long-term roadmap (TEP) we are developing for future transportation investments.
To make sharing your transit priorities easy, a collection tool is available where you can sign in to access a personal piggybank with 10 virtual coins that you can invest across the projects and programs you care most about. How you divvy them up is your choice – you can use all of your coins in one place, spread them out among 10 different priorities, or anything in between.
You can also participate by attending one of the number of public meetings on the development of the Expenditure Plan that Contra Costa Transportation Authority is planning. You can visit Contra Costa Transportation Authority’s website to learn more.
Finally, if you would like to see the Contra Costa Transportation Authority’s Expenditure Plan include new funding for bus transit, let your locally elected officials know! Tell them how important good bus service is for you and your community.
Remember, the future of bus transit in our area is going to be locally driven and locally funded, so let us know your transit priorities!