SANTA MONICA—On September 15, the city of Santa Monica celebrated Big Blue Bus accommodating 20 million bus rides in the last two years. According to the Big Blue Bus website, the bus fleet has 195 recently upgraded buses in operation that delivered over 10 million passengers a year for two years in a row.
Destinations include the Farmers Market, the Metro Station, or Santa Monica, and carried another 12,000 FIFA spectators from Downtown Santa Monica to the FIFA World Cup events held at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
Californians have taken advantage of the city bus since the 1900s when the Pacific Electric Railroad ran a trolley between Downtown Los Angeles into nearby communities. In 1921, after the population of Santa Monica nearly doubled, Bay City Transit Company took over the bus line.
In 1928, Santa Monica launched Santa Monica Municipal Bus Lines that carried 16,000 passengers in their first week. The buses had a blue color scheme from the start.
The number of transports continued to grow over the decades until the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath of shut-downs threw California into a slump. The Big Blue Bus line touted 12.5 million bus rides in 2019. In 2020, the number of bus riders dropped to 5,000. During the first years following the pandemic, numbers rose slightly, never reaching 7,000 passengers.
An increase in crime on the buses kept some of the riders away prompting Santa Monica Transportation to upgrade their buses and heightened security for the safety of the riders. The public transportation offered through the Big Blue Bus line is paid for through grants.
According to bigbluebus.com, bus fares are $1.25 for a one-way ride. Customers can contactless payments with a TAP, credit/debit card, or mobile ticket. Visit the website for more details or to pay with pre-loaded TAP card, learn more about college, senior, disabled, or Medicare discounts, children under 5 ride for free.
