Coronado officials want to explore using electric vehicles for the city’s free shuttle program, which provides daily transportation services over the summer months.
The city has funded a free bus program in partnership with San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) since 2013. City staff reported at a Nov. 3 meeting that operating costs were around $105,000 this year, with rides costing around $1.50 per passenger.
This past summer, the program ran from June to September, providing daily bus service between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. There was a 9% decrease in total ridership, going from 70,700 riders the year prior to 64,000. However, this change was anticipated as MTS switched the standard buses out to mini-buses.
Mini-buses only have 20 seats instead of the larger buses with 32-40 seats, which also allowed people to stand. The city also took away one bus, only having three operate per hour within the city.
MTS’ records found that 242 trips reached full capacity and over 650 passengers couldn’t board a bus.
Council member Carrie Anne Downey said during the meeting that even though those few hundred passengers couldn’t get on a bus, having the standard, larger buses wouldn’t have fixed that issue.
“Some people are saying maybe we shouldn’t keep the small sizes, but I think those have helped in a lot of ways, in terms of keeping it more efficient and therefore (bringing) price per person down,” Downey explained. “Getting the larger buses back wouldn’t necessarily solve the 653 passenger issue.”
Council member Kelly Purvis also said that, after observing riders, those who couldn’t board were willing to wait for the next bus, or some of them would walk a couple blocks and hop on at another stop.
Beverly Neff, manager of planning and reporting from MTS, said that electric buses are definitely in the department’s plans, but isn’t a priority as MTS hits a fiscal cliff this year.
At a City Council meeting earlier this year, Downey, who sits as one of the members of the MTS board of directors, explained that the transit agency is facing a fiscal cliff and it was predicted that funding will be cut by almost $500 million by the Trump administration.
The agency also said that there is a projected budget shortage of over $100 million in the next few years.
Neff said on Nov. 3 that MTS had started turning over their vehicles to electric but slowed down as they got closer to their budget.
“We have slowed down on the EV purchases just because those vehicles are so much more expensive and have much more limited range,” Neff said at the meeting. “It is not a current priority due to the fiscal issues that we’re in.”
The location with the highest number of riders was a stop by the Coronado Ferry Landing at 1st Street and B Avenue. There were over 15,000 boardings as compared to its second most popular stop on Orange Avenue and Adella Avenue, which had a little less than half at 8,700.
The free summer shuttle did not operate in the Cays, so the city provided 460 free day passes that were available to Cays residents for their use with another MTS bus line that did go through that area.
Just 460 of those passes were issued, and only 81 of them were used.
In anticipation of two busy weekends this summer, NASCAR weekend and Fourth of July, MTS scheduled a fourth bus to help with the potential increased foot traffic on the island.
However, ridership did not increase during NASCAR weekend and actually was lower than the weekends before and after the event. Ridership did increase for Fourth of July by almost 3,000 passengers.
There was also a Cays shuttle that was deployed for Fourth of July, carrying a total of 500 passengers. This was a 50% decrease from almost 1,000 riders in 2025.
