If you see a shiny blue bus driving around town with “RABA” painted boldly on the side, that’s the new bus line connecting Redding to Chico. The Redding Area Bus Authority partnered with Amtrak San Joaquins and began running this new bus for the first time ever on Aug. 22.
The bus, approved in November 2023, runs both north and south, stopping briefly in Red Bluff halfway between Redding and Chico.
This bus schedule particularly accommodates students from Redding who want to attend Chico State in-person.
People traveling from Redding to Chico have a four hour time period before having to catch the bus back home, while those traveling from Chico to Redding have only ten minutes. This makes a day trip possible for Redding students to attend morning and afternoon classes, and return home in time for dinner.
Currently, the bus does not have free rides for Chico State students, but that could change sometime in the future.
“We don’t have a relationship with Chico State, but we are open to such a relationship should they want to partner with us on that,” Transit General Manager John Andoh said. “We do have a relationship with Shasta College which allows [students] to ride the bus for free, since Shasta College will pay for them to ride the bus.”
The whole ride costs $10 one-way or $5 to Red Bluff only, and more ticket information can be found on the RABA website.
After connecting in Chico, Redding residents can transfer to an Amtrak bus and go as far as Sacramento, or Stockton.
Tickets for rides south of Chico must be purchased through the Amtrak website for the entirety of the trip, and students are able to get a 15% discount using the code V353.
One of the main goals of this bus line is to allow for something called bus-only ticketing.
“Under the state law, in order to ride an Amtrak bus, you have to ride a train,” Andoh said.
This law is Section 107, 3A II and III, which states guidelines for Amtrak service that works in contract with intercity bus operations. It defines that Amtrak buses are exclusively able to serve “passengers who have had prior movement by rail or will have subsequent movement by rail.”
“This law was enacted in [1997] and it was really to protect companies like Greyhound, which is not subsidized by the state, whereas Amtrak is subsidized by the state,” Andoh said.
This aspect of the Amtrak Reform and Accountability Act of 1997 was overturned when Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 742 into law in 2021. Bus-only tickets can now be sold on Amtrak Thruway buses in California.
“With us now running the route, you don’t have to ride a train anymore,” Andoh said.
Anthony Vasek can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].
To read this article in Spanish, go here.
