SamTrans (stylized as samTrans; officially the San Mateo County Transit District) is a public transport agency in and around San Mateo, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It provides bus service throughout San Mateo County and into portions of San Francisco and Palo Alto. SamTrans also operates commuter shuttles to BART stations and community shuttles. Service is largely concentrated on the east side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and, in the central county, I-280, leaving coast-side service south of Pacifica spotty and intermittent. SamTrans is constituted as a special district under California state law. It is governed by a board of nine appointed members; two county Supervisors, one "transportation expert" appointed by the county Board of Supervisors, three city council members appointed by the cities in the county to represent the county's judicial districts, and three citizens appointed by the other six board members (including one from the coastside). The district was established in 1976 and consolidated eleven different municipal bus systems serving the county. One year later, SamTrans began operation of mainline bus service to San Francisco. Shuttle service began in 2000. In addition to fixed-route bus and paratransit operations, the district participates in the administration of the San Jose-San Francisco commuter rail line Caltrain. SamTrans also provides administrative support for the San Mateo County Transportation Authority, a separate board charged with administering the half-cent (0.5 percent) sales tax levy that funds highway and transit improvement projects. In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . History SamTrans was formed in 1976 with the consolidation of 11 different city bus systems throughout San Mateo County. Today, SamTrans operates 48 fixed bus routes and a paratransit service branded Redi-Wheels (Bayside) or RediCoast (Coastside) on an annual budget of $177 million. Voters in San Mateo County approved the formation of the San Mateo County Transit District in 1974. SamTrans purchased the local bus fleet from Greyhound in 1977, and the SamTrans fleet exceeded 200 buses by 1980. In August 2013 the agency merged two routes along El Camino Real into the single all-day ECR route with 15-minute headways, briefly stemming a long-term decline in bus ridership that began in the early 1990s. Ridership on SamTrans buses was 52,140 passengers per weekday in November 2009; by November 2017, it had fallen to 37,830 bus passengers per weekday and continues to decline, further threatening the