El Camino

El Camino stretches from the Palo Alto Transit Center to the HP Pavilion (16.6 miles) and is currently served by Rapid 522 (15-minute headways) and Local 22 (12-minute headways). The preferred BRT plan for ultimate build out has 10-minute BRT headways and 15-minute local headways (called BRT 10-15) along the three corridors. The El Camino corridor has the following principal service features:

• Local 22 service along the El Camino and Alum Rock corridors (from Palo Alto Transit Center to Eastridge), operating at 15-minute headways, and
• New BRT 522 service to replace Rapid 522 on the El Camino and Alum Rock corridors (from Palo Alto Transit Center to Eastridge), operating at 10-minute headways.

The preferred operating plan generated the highest overall ridership of all the operating plans – nearly 84,000 daily riders combined on all routes. The El Camino Corridor is projected to have 33,000 daily riders (just under 40% of the total).

Capital cost estimates for the BRT 10-15 plan ranged $490-$577 million (with El Camino up to $216 million). Average per mile capital costs for all three corridors for the BRT 10-15 were $15.3 million/mile. Corridor per mile capital costs for El Camino (16.6 miles) was $13.0 million/mile.

The goal of the infrastructure strategy was to reduce in-vehicle travel time by 30% when compared to a local bus with right-of-way and station upgrades. El Camino has three segments of median busway (totaling 9.9 miles between Embarcadero-Jordan, Sylvan-Lawrence, and Calabazas–Benton), enhancements to mixed flow BRT sections, and 17 new BRT stations.