Bring Back The Pierce Street Bus

Status on July 24, 2026

Bring Back the Pierce Street Bus started a few months ago after I met Kaleo Mark of Connect Bay Area at an Oakland City Council Meeting. I signed his petition for the ballot measure and got the idea to collect signatures to convince AC Transit to reinstate a local bus on Pierce Street. Depending on my location, I collected signatures for a couple of months in Spring 2026 for the Save Public Transit ballot measure and/or Bring Back the Pierce Street Bus petition given to AC Transit. Further down the page, you will see the response from AC Transit for the signatures for Bring Back the Pierce Street Bus, along with links to organizations you can get involved with to motivate people to vote YES on the November 3 Public Transit Revenue Measure.

Email received June 3, 2026 from the planning department at AC Transit

Dear Ms. Getz,

Thank you for sending this information over to us. We know that providing service to Pierce Street is an important issue for you. At this time, we are unable to add service to Pierce Street due to a lack of funding and significant budget constraints facing AC Transit. However, we are looking into the costs to determine what it would take to add service to Pierce Street, should funding become available.

In the meantime, Line L runs along Pierce Street to San Francisco on weekday mornings and returns from San Francisco in the afternoon/evening. In addition, Lines 72, 72M, and 72L also run along San Pablo Avenue at 30-minute frequencies. We understand these routes may not be the most convenient for you, and we will note down the request. If more funding for transit becomes available, we'll look into future ridership markets throughout our service area, including Pierce Street.

Finally, we want to confirm that we have received the PDF with signatures and will be taking into consideration your requests. If there are any questions or if you have any additional comments, please do not hesitate to contact our planning team (planning@actransit.org).

Thank you,

Planning

AC Transit

More general information from the official agencies and groups organized to get the Public Transit Revenue Measure passed:

Metropolitan Transportation Commission

https://mtc.ca.gov/about-mtc/authorities/public-transit-revenue-measure-district

Seamless Bay Area

https://www.seamlessbayarea.org/2026-regional-measure

The Oaklandside "newspaper" reporting back in October 2025

https://oaklandside.org/2025/10/15/gov-newsom-signs-sb-63-setting-stage-for-billion-dollar-bay-area-transit-funding-vote/

From Seamless Bay Area, https://www.seamlessbayarea.org/blog/2026/5/30/campaign-to-save-bay-area-public-transit-smashes-signature-gathering-goal-fueled-by-grassroots-tr

The Connect Bay Area transit campaign submitted more than 305,000 signatures to qualify a regional transit funding measure for the November 2026 ballot – blowing past the 186,000 valid signatures required.

The success of this effort was built on one of the largest grassroots transit organizing initiatives the region has ever seen with Seamless Bay Area and Transbay Coalition having co-led this effort. Since launching in January, we mobilized more than 1,000 volunteers at more than 600 signature gathering events spread across Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties.

All together, community advocates gathered more than 77,000 signatures, about 40% of all the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. Community advocates turned in nearly 20,000 signatures since our last update in early May.

Where you can go to still be involved in Public Transit events:

Seamless Bay Area

https://www.seamlessbayarea.org/2026-regional-measure

Transbay Coalition

https://www.transbaycoalition.org/

Connect Bay Area

https://connectbayarea.com/

History of the Bring Back the Pierce Street Bus:

Realign removed the 80 bus line in August 2025.

We collected signatures in person and names/addresses online to submit to AC Transit.

I submitted 53 comments gathered in the Google Form and 54 paper signatures on May 20, 2026, to the AC Transit Board of Directors communication portal.

I will still gather any paper petitions that I may have left at some places. Email me at melissagetz@gmail.com to tell me I need to pick up the documents.

The Google Form is still "live," so you can continue to submit comments you want me to forward to AC Transit.

I have attended four AC Transit Board of Directors meetings. They got the message. Now we want to give them evidence that my voice is not the only one.

Director Sandhu asked me to write up what I am thinking about. If you rode the 80, you'll recognize the blue path.

A representative of AC Transit came to the Albany City Council meeting on May 4 to say they would be discussing Albany's transit fate at the June 10 AC Transit Board of Directors meeting. Even if you can't go in person, you should be able to call in during the community venting part of the meeting. You can go to this website: https://actransit.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx to get the meeting link. At the moment, I had to scroll down the page to see the Zoom link.

You can also email the AC Transit Board of Directors before the meeting: https://www.actransit.org/form/contact-the-board-of-directors. The more they hear from Pierce Street residents, the more aware they will be of our concerns.

You can fill out a digital survey for Bring Back the Pierce Street Bus and leave comments here: https://forms.gle/8RTbBiSS5QVgvN5AA

You can also access the survey here:

AC Transit is divided into Wards. We live in Ward 1. Their ward map is here: https://www.actransit.org/wards-map

If you want to participate in the Board of Directors Meetings, visit this website for instructions: https://www.actransit.org/node/28178.

You can submit written comments before the meeting. https://www.actransit.org/form/submit-a-public-comment. You may attach one file to your written comments.

You do not have to go to the meeting in person. I think seeing me in a wheelchair was more powerful than merely mentioning it as a call-in during a Zoom meeting. When you go in person, you only get to speak for 2 minutes.

This form will let you submit comments directly to the entire Board of Directors: https://www.actransit.org/form/contact-the-board-of-directors.

If you want to contact the Director who oversees our ward directly, you can email:

Ward 1 (where we live) Harpreet S. Sandhu hssandhu@actransit.org

You can send questions about this petition to melissagetz@gmail.com.

This is a Google site, and I have not requested any tracking cookies to be used. If you think you are being tracked by cookies, contact me immediately so I can get an idea of why you think this is happening. I do not get any revenue from any visitors to this website. melissagetz@gmail.com. I am just an ordinary person who wants the local bus to return to the bus stops meters away from my building.
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