A person boards a Santa Barbara bus this week. Changes to a dozen Santa Barbara MTD bus routes will kick in Aug. 17. The agency is looking at a budget deficit and is cutting low-passenger routes as cost-saving measure.
A person boards a Santa Barbara bus this week. Changes to a dozen Santa Barbara MTD bus routes will kick in Aug. 17. The agency is looking at a budget deficit and is cutting low-passenger routes as cost-saving measure. Credit: Daniel Green / Noozhawk photo

Changes to multiple local bus routes will go into effect this month.

Beginning on Aug. 17, the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District will change the schedule and routes for a dozen bus lines as part of a plan to cut costs.

Lines 1 and 2 will see reduced service, which will increase wait times for weekday buses from 15 minutes to 20 minutes per trip. Line 1 serves West Santa Barbara, and Line 2 serves East Santa Barbara.

Lines 3, 4, 17 and 5 will reduce the Saturday schedule to match the lines’ Sunday schedule.

These routes operate in Oak Park, Mesa/Santa Barbara City College, Lower West Santa Barbara, SBCC and Mesa/La Cumbre.

Line 7 in Old Town Goleta will eliminate its last weekday outbound trip. The last trip was 9:45 p.m., but the last trip will now depart at 7:10 p.m.

Line 14 in Montecito will eliminate one weekday morning and Saturday morning round-trip.

The MTD will also cut the last weekday trips for Lines 11 in UC Santa Barbara, 23 in El Encanto Heights and 25 in Ellwood/Winchester Canyon. The cuts will affect the last outbound trip for Line 23, the inbound Line 25 trip, and the inbound Line 11 trip.

The Wave Microtransit will also begin service in Carpinteria in September and continue to Goleta and Isla Vista through June 2027.

The MTD said in April it planned to reduce service to trips that saw less use. Public transit agencies under a certain size are eligible for extra funding, but the MTD is no longer one of them, since the local population is now too large to meet the criteria.

The agency is facing a $3 million loss and a $4.6 million deficit for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The agency also expects to see a $5.8 million deficit for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

The changes come as the MTD continues to deal with a driver shortage that has required the agency to cancel dozens of trips.

The MTD lost seven drivers in April, according to Hillary Blackerby, a spokeswoman for the MTD.

Blackerby said the MTD is actively hiring, but training the new drivers takes two to three months from the time of hiring before they are ready to operate their own bus.

— Noozhawk staff writer Daniel Green can be reached at dgreen@noozhawk.com.