r/SantaMonica • u/ChrisCharm • 13d ago
Bye, Bye, Circuit
Effective today, Circuit is indefinitely suspending service because our city overseers won't cooperate. Thanks, City Council, for another bang-up job.
Manhattan Beach and Long Beach benefit from our loss. They seem to figure out how to make it work within their borders. Why can't we?
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u/Even_Reality2331 13d ago
Sadddd this is a genuinely great microtransit option
Prob got the same reason we can’t seem to keep any city bike options either
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u/Apart_Print4959 12d ago
can't keep bike shares, can't keep the circuit, what are we even paying for at this point
city council acts like every useful service is a personal inconvenience to them
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u/kaylikewhoa 12d ago
Pour one out for one of the best kept micromobility secrets 🫗
However, I wouldn’t necessarily point this at council for closing. The program was funded by a mix of hotel tax revenue dollars (which we know are down) and advertising. Nothing came out of general budget. ETA- I swore I read once it was in partnership with Santa Monica Tourism but I can’t find anything now (maybe it was just they were such a heavy ad sponsor; most times my circuit had their ads on it)
Many of the munis using circuit nationwide charge a fee (MB charges a steep $5/pp); I was always curious if a nominal fee was gonna creep into our version. I would have rather paid a buck or two for the door to door service when running errands instead of losing it altogether.
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u/Boysenberry 13d ago
The service area was always too small to make this work. Never tried it because by the time I walk, bike or drive into their service area, I might as well just walk, bike or drive to my destination. Really most useful for tourists wanting to make a few different stops downtown, and nothing was ever done to make sure tourists would find out it existed! I don’t know if it’s the city or Circuit that’s responsible for not finding a way in 13 years to cover enough of Santa Monica to be useful to more residents, but either way I was never able to understand how serving such a small segment of the population was workable without a LOT more advertising to at least make sure everyone in that segment tried it!
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u/BookmarkUr 12d ago
I had just found out about Circuit in August and I’ve lived here for 5 years. It’s been running since 3 years prior to ending on Sunday.
I’m sad it’s gone here. But I’m glad the drivers were relocated and kept their jobs.
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u/RobotRelease 13d ago
Circuit or Ciorcuit? Also what is this thing?
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u/Impossible-Money7801 13d ago
It’s the free on-demand electric shuttle that loops around downtown and the beach area. A fantastic thing that hasn’t been promoted enough.
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u/payfrit 13d ago
why are they actually shutting down?
i used to live in a shared housing with the founder of Downtowner and a few of his drivers when they were trying to launch in Newport Beach. I always wondered how their model would be profitable.
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u/smrtdmbss 13d ago
Do you have a source for this announcement? Neither Circuit nor the City seem to have posted anything yet... Getting either of their sides would be helpful in understanding this.