Balboa Park bus detours for December Nights may impact public transit users
Critics say diverting routes 7 and 215 undermines transit access as MTS adds shuttles for the massive holiday festival.
Written by Lauren J. Mapp, Edited by Maya Srikrishnan and Sam Barney-Gibbs
December Nights brings nearly 350,000 spirited people to Balboa Park the first weekend of the month. While the event provides endless holiday fun, getting there always proves challenging, with gridlocked traffic and not enough parking nearby for the high number of visitors.
The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System offers free shuttle rides during the popular holiday event and the city encourages public transit to make attending more sustainable. But officials may be making public transit during the event more difficult to use by diverting major bus routes along dedicated bus lanes near the park.
For the third year in a row, the city will divert the route 7 and 215 buses that normally use Park Boulevard’s dedicated bus lanes to the SR-163 during December Nights, making it difficult for residents who need public transit for other reasons along those routes to use the bus.
“It's sad to see that the city made a decision that the bus lanes are insufficient, therefore we effectively eliminate the bus lanes during these events,” RiseSD Vice President Leif Gensert said.
Last year, the 7 and 215 buses were two of the most used routes in the city with nearly 1.9 million and 1.4 million annual riders, respectively, according to MTS.
The city opened the dedicated bus-only lanes on Park Boulevard in 2023 as part of a $44 million rapid bus route project that aimed at speeding up bus travel times between San Diego State University and downtown.
Instead of regular bus service on Park Boulevard during December Nights, MTS will operate eight buses as a shuttle traveling southbound in the dedicated bus lane, stopping at San Diego City College, then looping back up along Florida Drive to bring guests to the park.
Attendees can either park at City College, or take public transit there (the Blue Line, Orange Line, and both the route 7 and 215 all stop nearby), then take the shuttle into the park. Bus routes 3 and 120 (which run along the western edge of Balboa Park on Fourth and Fifth Avenue) will run on their usual schedules.
RideSD, a nonprofit organization advocating for public transportation improvements in San Diego, called out the decision to divert the two Park Boulevard routes this week in an open letter, written by Gensert.
The letter reads, in part, that, “This is not only disruptive to people who need to take these lines beyond Balboa Park, it directly goes against the purpose of public transport.”
MTS Director of Marketing and Communications Mark Olson said the decision to divert the two bus routes and replace them with a looping shuttle service is the best option given the logistics of traveling to the popular holiday event.
While there are dedicated bus lanes along parts of Park and El Cajon boulevards, the full route is not segregated, so it would cause delays regardless due to the high volume of traffic.
Olson said although the bus detour cuts out a few bus stops along the regular route, public transit riders have anecdotally told MTS supervisors during the event they are happy with how smooth the current configuration of transit is during December Nights.
“Over the years, we've tried a few different routes and detours trying to just most effectively get people to December Nights,” Olson said. “Really what our team found was this, this situation that we're using this year, the service plan has really worked the best.”
Pointing to other large-scale events like San Diego Comic-Con and Padres games that don’t impact public transit service, Gensert told Daylight he thinks there could be other options for accessing Balboa Park without disrupting regular transit service. He added that RideSD intends to reach out to MTS and the city to work on possible solutions earlier ahead of next year’s December Nights.
“We would love to see a little bit more willingness of thinking outside the box, how we can prioritize transit, while also keeping people that choose to drive, give them a certain amount of convenience,” Gensert said.
Updated on Dec. 5, 2025 at 01:01 p.m. with additional details from MTS about how they received feedback from customers and the number of shuttles during December Nights.
