FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

6 September 2011

MONTEREY-SALINAS TRANSIT PARTNERS WITH THE MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL TO CREATE THE JAZZIEST BUS RAPID TRANSIT SERVICE IN THE NATION

Monterey-Salinas Transit (MST) is partnering with the world famous Monterey Jazz Festival to launch their Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service in Monterey County in the fall of 2012. This new service will not only decrease travel times by as much as 25 percent along one of the busiest traffic corridors on the Monterey Peninsula, but it will provide an entertaining and educational history of the Monterey Jazz Festival at the same time.

Aptly name “JAZZ,” the new 6.75-mile BRT service will start at Sand City Station located at the Edgewater Shopping Center in Sand City, run along Fremont in Seaside and North Monterey, continue through downtown Monterey and along the visitor-intensive Lighthouse Avenue corridor in New Monterey, and turn around for a return trip near the world famous Monterey Bay Aquarium.

“Monterey, Seaside and Sand City planners have enthusiastically supported the project and given us final approvals to proceed,” says Hunter Harvath, Assistant General Manager of MST. “What really makes “JAZZ” a “first of its kind” in the nation is our collaboration with theMonterey Jazz Festival, which has opened its archives for this project and is working with MST to develop a year-round linear jazz museum that will feature dramatic jazz themed displays at 30 new custom-designed shelters along the route. We think locals and tourists alike are going to love it! And to help spur the local economy, we will be heavily promoting it to increase foot traffic for businesses along the corridor.”

The New BRT service will introduce new technologies that include queue jump lanes, transit signal priority (TSP) and increased stop spacing to streamline bus traffic along the corridor and significantly reduce travel times. The new shelters will offer Global Positioning System (GPS)-enabled electronic passenger information signage and other enhanced amenities as well as minimal curb and sidewalk improvements to ensure that all stop locations meet federally-mandated Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. Pavement at stops and at the new queue jump locations will be upgraded to accommodate BRT operations and redesigned to provide a unique, decorative flair to match the new JAZZ design and color scheme. The low-floor buses that MST will operate on the BRT corridor are already TSP-enabled and will be repainted to reflect the strong JAZZ brand image of the new service. It is not anticipated that right-of-way will need to be acquired as all project activities are expected to take place within the public domain.

A sample shelter will be on display within the Monterey County Fairgrounds at this year’s Monterey Jazz Festival, which takes place September 16-18, 2011. The full system is slated for completion in time for the 55th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival in September of 2012.

In late 2009, MST received approximately $2.7 million in Small Starts program funds from the Federal Transit Administration to fully-fund the project, along with $700,000 in state transportation bonds.

For more information, visit www.mst.org or call Monterey-Salinas Transit toll free at 1-888-MST-BUS1.

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