VTA 89 (California Ave — VA Hospital)
a weird floating blob on the vta network, this time in the rain
This route will be cut back just a bit in January 2025. In peak hours, the line takes a slightly more circuitous route to get to the VA hospital (marked in dashed lines below) to serve Gunn High School and some tech parks on Arastradero. This will be cut in January, replaced with all services taking the direct (bold line) route into the VA hospital.
It is my duty now to ride this segment before it is cut, unfortunately. So I did. Along with five other routes that were published week by week prior to this.
the route
This route is surprisingly isolated from the remainder of the system. It only connects to the 22 and its Rapid sibling route 522, and not to any local buses. It starts at California Ave. Caltrain and takes a whole of 12 minutes to get to the VA hospital (disregarding the deviation at the end which would make it 20 minutes).
I got off my Caltrain service at California Ave. and got on the last bus of the morning to serve the Arastradero loop.
Leaving the station, we quickly deviated from it to avoid the pedestrianized segments of California Avenue, going around via Oregon Expressway and El Camino to get back on it later. After rejoining California, it’s a pleasant ride through the leafy green suburbs of Palo Alto before entering BUSINESS PARK HELL.
It is all business parks after turning onto Hanover St. Unpleasant experience.
We turned onto Arastradero to serve the hilltop loop. More business parks!
Finally, after an 8 minute deviation to serve Gunn, we made it to the VA hospital. This same bus is going to take us back to California Ave. in a moment.
in review
This is a small, small route and doesn’t get very much ridership. The land use is mediocre, there was a total of one other rider on the bus with me the whole time! The travel speed is pretty good as well.
The upcoming service changes are planning to remove the hilltop deviation and service to Gunn. This is what we in the business call a “bad move”, in my humble opinion, as it leaves GHS with bad once or twice a day school tripper service. The planned service changes allow for significantly more regular service and better frequency most days, though, improving hours and frequency from its current every 40 minutes from 9 AM to 6 PM to every ~24 from 6 AM to 6 PM.
final thoughts
5/10 — My major problem with this route is frequency. The frequency is just plain awful. Getting rid of the hilltop loop will help frequency, but at the cost of the Gunn deviation. Everything else about this route is expected and acceptable for a small suburban route. Nothing special, just a milquetoast route.
The office parks served were pretty dead in the middle of winter holiday. I expected that. The land use is not stellar around the route. The scenery is more interesting than the average VTA route, mainly thanks to the pastures around the hilltop.
This route could also do with maybe one more stop around the urban core of California Ave, as it currently just runs direct nonstop between El Camino and Caltrain. The distance justifies a stop, and the fact there are lots of businesses and houses in that area that’s far enough from Caltrain to get a bus connection but close enough to make it a quick, non-disruptive trip makes it an even better location.
Special thanks to the operator on 89, who told me he was the only person operating this route. It sounds like a monotonous job, but that’s not for me to say.
oh and also happy new year