MTD Launches New Line 19x Serving Carpinteria, Eastside & SBCC

By the Santa Barbara MTD

[On Thursday], community leaders came together on a bus ride and with a press conference to celebrate this week’s launch of a new express bus service—MTD’s Line 19x.

The Line 19x (Carpinteria/SBCC Express) provides peak weekday service to Carpinteria, Santa Barbara’s Eastside, and Santa Barbara City College. This service is financially supported by Measure A as part of the Highway 101: Carpinteria to Santa Barbara project to help alleviate congestion and improve the flow of traffic during construction. 

Several community leaders boarded the Line 19x bus in Carpinteria and Santa Barbara, and were joined by several others at the main SBCC bus stop on Cliff Drive for a brief press conference.

Speakers included Santa Barbara MTD General Manager Jerry Estrada, SBCAG Executive Director Marjie KIRN, Carpinteria Mayor Al Clark, First District County Supervisor Das Williams, and SBCC Board of Trustees President Jonathan Abboud. Additional guests including Carpinteria and Santa Barbara City Councilmembers, members of MTD Board of Directors, and SBCC leadership, including new Superintendent and President Erika Endrijonas.

“Connecting these important destinations to each other fulfills several requests that we’ve heard for many years,” said Jerry Estrada, General Manager of Santa Barbara MTD. “With the 19x we’ve brought back peak express bus service back between Carpinteria and Santa Barbara, and we now provide direct service to SBCC for both Eastside residents and Carpinterians.”

“We can reduce traffic congestion by trying Santa Barbara MTD’s new direct service between Carpinteria, Santa Barbara, and SBCC,” said Marjie KIRN, Executive Director of SBCAG. “The new 19x service is made possible because of the investment of Highway 101 Carpinteria to Santa Barbara project funds. This investment helps make the community vision for a sustainable future a reality. We ask the public to try this transportation option and experience the benefits first-hand.”

“We are thrilled with the launch of the 19x, a new express route that can help put an end to the soul sucking traffic between Carpinteria and Santa Barbara City College,” said Jonathan Abboud, President of SBCC Board of Trustees. “This is big win for our neighbors, SBCC students and employees, and the environment.”

Details about the Line 19x route and schedule can be found here.

MTD Santa Barbara

Written by MTD Santa Barbara

Press releases from the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District (MTD). Learn more at sbmtd.gov

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    • Line 19x has seven stops. None in Montecito. She lives in Montecito. She’d have to take the outbound Line 20 from a stop in Montecito towards Carpinteria, to then transfer to a Line 19x, SBCC inbound bus. See the schedule, Line 19x services SBCC students and employees three departure times a day (M-F) in one direction.

  1. Fare revenue: $2,500,000
    Expenses $28,000,000
    Average Ridership per mile is 2 riders per mile (not including the driver) The bus is much larger than a car and gets less gas mileage, so two riders in a huge bus per mile on average? Doesn’t it seem likely to anyone that the MTD bus uses more fuel per mile than an toyota celica?
    https://sbmtd.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/20210601-Item-7-Operating-Capital-Budget.pdf
    This isn’t a great deal. Taxpayer money $25.5M for 2 riders on average per mile in a giant fuel guzzling bus.

  2. If average ridership is less than 2 per mile in a huge bus, then the system needs to be streamlined to be carbon efficient? The ridership numbers work out for the UCSB and SBCC lines and a couple others into downtown, but they do not seem to offset the carbon blasted into the air per mile

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