MST continues to take steps toward a regional bus rapid transit network.

At its meeting April 14, the Monterey-Salinas Transit board is set to award a contract to a firm to conduct the Salinas Transit Center Relocation and East Alisal Bus Rapid Transit Planning Study. Word salad aside, it’s a kind of milestone, and begins the long-envisioned project to move the transit center closer to Alisal, where most of the agency’s customers live.

The study is being funded by a $463,100 grant that Caltrans awarded MST last year, and is being matched by $20,000 each from MST, the City of Salinas and Taylor Farms. Along with planning a bus rapid transit corridor in East Alisal, that study will also look at potential locations for a new transit center.

“We’ve just never had a viable place to go, and money to do the studies,” says Carl Sedoryk, MST’s general manager, who adds that building something else on the property – a hotel, perhaps, or housing – has been discussed for years. But MST’s L-shaped parcel is only 0.8 acres, and redeveloping it would likely require, according to a recent MST report, “assembling adjacent parcels.”

The board is also set to award the final contract to construct the controversial SURF! Busway project, which Sedoryk says remains on schedule as the agency works through preconstruction conditions with the California Coastal Commission. “I’m not seeing anything that’s a showstopper,” he says.

The project’s price tag – which last fall was pegged at just over $90 million – has been rising, however, and March 10, the board approved a $3.1 million addition to a $5.85 million contract with Accenture for construction oversight. Sedoryk says SURF! will be done by March 2028, despite two pending lawsuits against the Transportation Agency for Monterey County, which owns the easement where SURF! is planned to be built.

Also notable on MST’s radar is that the agency is exploring the possibility of double-decker buses on Line 23 from Salinas to King City, as MST doesn’t allow passengers to stand when a bus is on Highway 101 due to safety concerns. There’s been a big boost of ridership on the line in the past year, which Sedoryk attributes to a boost in in-person enrollment at Hartnell College last year.

Sedoryk says the hope is for the agency’s drivers to be able to test out one of the buses for a month sometime this spring, without paying passengers on board.