February 28, 2019: The SacRT board approved a new bus network on Tuesday night, voting in favor of a consolidated route map that will focus on “major corridors that will lead to economic growth and reduce congestion,” according to a press release. The new plan was the first major redesign of bus routes in 30 years.

When we last checked in on the SacRT Forward project, which overhauls Sacramento County’s transit network, we explored the transit trade-off between high ridership and high coverage under a fixed budget. The newly approved plan tilts toward high ridership by consolidating some routes and increasing frequency on key corridors. These changes are expected to result in between 400,000 to 1,000,000 more rides a year.

SacRT is also investing $2.1 million from SB1 funds in new peak hour services. In some places where fixed-route services have been cut, new SmaRT Ride microtransit service will run. Another focus was adding weekend services so that all routes (with one exception) have seven-day service.

Increased frequency was another goal, and in the new network, all routes (with the exception of one rural route) have service at least every 45 minutes.

The new network consists of 27 regular routes, 14 peak hour only routes and expanded microtransit areas. The project took about a year and half to complete, and involved more than 70 community events to ask people what people what they wanted from their bus service.