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The big green buses that travel on San Pablo Avenue from downtown Oakland to the Hilltop Mall are precursors of what nine East Bay communities are eyeing as the wave of the future. 

The goal is to speed up AC Transit’s bus service and make it more reliable for the 14,000 daily passengers on the 17-mile stretch and attract new riders from the ranks of automobile drivers. 

Jim Gleich, deputy general manager for AC Transit, said during a press conference Friday in Oakland that the concept is based on bus service functioning as light rail transportation, a sort of subway on the street. 

The plan employs high-tech strategies to pinpoint the location of buses and allow for longer green lights for the new buses. Currently there are about 24 of the low-floor coaches on the San Pablo corridor, in addition to the regular buses on the route. 

A new multimillion-dollar Signal Interconnect Program will begin this summer to decrease congestion and ease the flow of traffic through the nine cities along San Pablo Avenue from Oakland to Hercules. San Pablo is one of the five heaviest traffic corridors for AC Transit. 

The buses will be equipped with sensors that emit signals to a traffic controller, who will determine if the bus gets priority, said Min Lee, a Caltrans signal operations manager. 

“The idea is to extend the green light,” Lee said. 

Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington said many people choose not to ride buses because of the slow speed, as well as the shabby appearance of vehicles. 

“This is very exciting and it is a step forward,” he said. “It will make buses more appealing to a wider range of people.” 

Dennis Fay, executive director of the Alameda Congestion Management Agency, said 90 traffic signals will be timed for smoother flow of traffic. The result should be a 25 percent reduction in travel time on the corridor, he said. 

He said the hardware component of the project is completed and the software is in production for the Signal Interconnect Program. In the future “it will get even more high tech,” said Fay. 

With global positioning technology, he said, AC Transit will be able to locate the buses within 10 meters to ease them through the intersections and keep them on schedule. The project will move forward in increments. 

In March, the cities signed a memorandum of understanding for San Pablo Avenue, along with Alameda County and Contra Costa County and regional transportation agencies, to work together to improve transportation along the corridor. 

Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean said the cooperative project originated in 1995 with Berkeley, Albany and Oakland leaders in a positive reaction to business development in Emeryville. 

“We came up with the idea of a quality bus system,” said Dean. 

The idea was frequent bus service, less congestion and coordinated traffic signals. She said they wanted people to stop along San Pablo and shift the focus away from just driving to Emeryville. 

She said Measure B funding for transportation will be up again on the November ballot; the last time it was on the ballot, Measure B failed to garner the necessary two-thirds vote for passage. Federal funding also is sought to further the San Pablo Corridor Project, Dean said. 

Steve Heminger, deputy executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said the transportation funding would be used to make communities more livable. Too often transportation has had the opposite effect, he said. 

Converting automobile drivers to bus passengers will have ecological benefits as well as easing congestion, and Brian Weinberger from the office of Sen. Don Perata, 16th District, said the San Pablo project is a piece of the big picture of transportation. 

Increases in population in the Bay Area and the corresponding new housing, combined with the need of employers to attract personnel who can commute to work in a reasonable time frame, make transportation innovations essential, said Weinberger. 

Combined with “bus rapid transit” the cooperating municipalities have completed face-lifting projects on San Pablo Avenue. The City of Berkeley utilized a $230,000 grant for façade restoration. 

Transportation all boils down to the person waiting for his or her bus to come on time, to be clean, and to get that person to a destination as quickly as possible, said Nora Davis, speaking for the Emeryville City Council.