Manteca commuters working in Sacramento will be able to catch one of three buses weekdays to reach Modesto or the Capital City starting July 1.

Modesto Area Express (MAX) — the Stanislaus County equivalent of San Joaquin Regional Transit — is rolling out service to connect the Modesto Vintage Faire Mall park and ride lot with the Stockton Downtown Transit Center with a stop on the way at the Manteca Transit Center at Moffat Boulevard and South Main Street. In Stockton, riders will board SJRTD buses to Sacramento.

The proposed service would have three weekday roundtrips. The first bus would depart Modesto at 6:30 a.m. and head to the Manteca Transit Center. It will stop on the way back in Manteca each time making travel to Modesto from Manteca by a fixed route bus a reality for the first time since 1993 when Greyhound discontinued intercity bus service in Manteca.

When combined with the afternoon MAX trips, it means Manteca residents working in Modesto or attending Modesto Junior College would be able to take a bus from downtown Manteca and transfer to fixed routes in the MAX system to travel in Modesto.

You will be able to access three fixed route bus services at the Manteca Transit Center — the SJRTD Hoppers, MAX, and Manteca Transit.

MAX already operates three morning and four afternoon buses between Vintage Faire Mall and the Lathrop ACE station.

Travel options from downtown Manteca will become even more robust when Altamont Corridor Express passenger train service is launched in 2023.

There will be three daily trains originating in Ceres heading to Sacramento and one heading to San Jose. The three Sacramento-bound trains would also stop at a new north Lathrop station that would allow transfers to the four existing ACE trains that depart Stockton weekdays to San Jose. Eventually the plan is to be able to transfer to the proposed Valley Link train at North Lathrop to connect to BART service in Dublin/Pleasanton.

The Manteca City Council will consider the MAX request to stop at the Manteca Transit Center when they meet tonight at 7 p.m. via a Zoom meeting due to pandemic social distancing requirement. The meeting will be livestreamed on the City of Manteca’s website as well as Comcast Channel 97.
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To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com