A&MRTS Suspends Campus, Late-Night Bus Service March 14 Through 22

The Humboldt Transit Authority suspended three A&MRTS services this week, leaving Cal Poly Humboldt students and late-night riders without the HHM Shuttle, Green & Gold campus routes, and all bus service between 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. through March 22. Regular service is set to resume March 23, according to an advisory HTA posted to its website on March 11.

The advisory gave no reason for the temporary suspension. It covered nine consecutive days of reduced operations across what is normally a three-route system, with all routes originating and terminating at the Arcata Intermodal Transit Center at 925 E Street.

The timing hits a rider base that skews heavily young. Because Cal Poly Humboldt sits within Arcata's 9.1-square-mile city limits, roughly 40 percent of Arcata's population of slightly over 19,000 falls between the ages of 18 and 24, according to a triennial performance audit prepared by LSC Transportation Consultants for the Humboldt County Association of Governments. The Gold Route, which runs weekdays between 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. serving Cal Poly Humboldt, downtown Arcata, and the Valley West Shopping Center, continues to operate during the suspension period. The Red Route, which covers Monday through Saturday including evening weekday service when Cal Poly Humboldt is in session, also remains in partial operation; only the late-night 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. window is cut.

The March suspension adds another layer of schedule complexity to a system that has been in transition. A separate HTA advisory posted January 9 established that starting January 20, the Red and Gold routes would run 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. through May 22, while the Orange route would no longer operate late nights on weekdays, though it retains its normal schedule on Saturdays and holidays. The current suspension temporarily overrides the late-night window that January advisory had established for Red and Gold.

The organizational backdrop is significant. HTA took over running and staffing all A&MRTS routes in 2023, a progression that began in 2001 when A&MRTS first contracted HTA for vehicle maintenance and parking. In March 2025, the Lost Coast Outpost reported that Arcata's city council was moving to formalize a full merger, citing a staff finding that Arcata "does not have adequate staffing resources to implement cost-effective operation of the A&MRTS on its own." A council decision finalized the transfer of all A&MRTS assets to HTA, with 12 vehicles, including eight buses, scheduled to become HTA property on May 1, 2025. All local, state, and federal transportation funding that previously flowed to A&MRTS was directed to HTA as part of that transfer.

A&MRTS had operated as an independent city department since 1975. The fleet's annual insurance premium alone ran about $70,000 a year, paid to the California Transit Indemnity Pool, a cost the city shed once it stopped running the system independently.

The system's last comparable service reduction came during the pandemic years, when A&MRTS operated only one route through portions of fiscal years 2019-20, 2020-21, and 2021-22 before returning to a full schedule in July 2022.

HTA's advisory page lists full schedule details; riders using Internet Explorer may encounter compatibility issues accessing the site and should use a current browser. Service across all suspended routes is expected to return to normal March 23.