City seeks feedback on Juneau’s transportation needs amidst reemergence of crowded buses

Survey soliciting input for Juneau Coordinated Human Services Transportation Plan closes on July 27

Buses leave the Downtown Transit Center on July 7, 2026. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Independent)

By Jasz Garrett

Juneau Independent

The City and Borough of Juneau is seeking public input on transportation needs, with a survey open until July 27. 

In 2024, more service and visitor information was implemented to help Capital Transit keep up with growing cruise passenger traffic. 

“We were able to get some marine passenger fee funding to add extra service during the summer and that has definitely helped,” said Matt Carpenter, acting superintendent and lead operator of Capital Transit. “We did have sporadic issues with overcrowding last summer, but it seemed to be way less than 2024 and earlier, but it seemed to have helped a lot. This summer we are still getting sporadic overcrowding issues.” 

He said it’s weather-dependent, with more tourists riding the bus on sunny days. Carpenter said drivers track when they refuse service due to overcrowding so they can try to address the issues in the future. He said turning away passengers has been more prevalent this year with visitors seeking lower-cost options.

“It’s very difficult for us to make big changes during the summer,” he said. “So it's kind of something that we usually analyze in more depth at the end of the summer, so we're planning for the next summer.”

This summer, there are extra express buses (Route 8) to the Mendenhall Valley on Saturdays and Sundays from about 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 

“Typically in the off-season the express buses are only Monday through Friday,” Carpenter said. “But due to the extra demand in the summer we really do need to run those express buses on the weekend to try to prevent overcrowding on our buses.”

Capital Transit also has core buses (Routes 1, 3 and 4) extending service until midnight Sunday, which is also funded through marine passenger fees. In the offseason, the Sunday service starts later in the morning and the last round begins around 5:45 p.m. 

“But for the summer we do expand that service to match our Saturday level service, so there are buses with last runs of the evening that start about 10:45 p.m. or so, depending on the exact bus and route,” Carpenter said. “So that is also extra service that we run during the summer, and that's kind of based on the cruise ship schedules that we do have.”

He added Sundays are a busy day for Juneau, with ships in port late in the evening.

Carpenter said other extended services include full bus service on Memorial Day and Labor Day. He said the extended summer service is expected to run through Sunday, Sept. 20. It began on May 4. 

Carpenter added it’s been a staffing challenge both driver- and maintenance-wise in the last few years to provide extra services. 

“That’s one of the issues we’re having, is that even if we had the staffing, we’re sort of limited by our fleet size — number of buses — on what sort of extra service we can realistically offer, so we are exploring options of maybe being able to expand our fleet size,” he said.

Carpenter said other potential future solutions could include assessing whether to rearrange routes to more efficiently use buses available and adjust schedules to fit emerging ridership patterns. 

“Looking if there might be segments where we have low ridership that we could try to shift resources around to help deal with any overcrowding issues,” he said.

The answers to the city survey will help with updates to the Juneau Coordinated Human Services Transportation Plan, which establishes priorities for coordinated transportation projects serving older adults, people with disabilities and lower-income households.

Responses help identify where transportation is unavailable, does not adequately meet community needs, or is difficult to use. The results will inform future service and funding priorities, according to the survey description. 

Along with this city survey, Carpenter said Capital Transit plans to run a survey this fall about its service specifically.

• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.