As Jack London Square and Uptown become more popular destinations for drinking, dining, and entertainment, a new City service will link the two districts with a free, weekday shuttle running down Broadway between the waterfront and Grand Avenue.

The Broadway Shuttle is expected to begin early next year, and comes as Jack London Square seeks to become a regional culinary destination on a par with the Ferry Building in San Francisco or Pikes Place Market in Seattle. A $1 million grant from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District combined with $200,000 from Jack London Square Partners and $160,000 from downtown area redevelopment funds will pay for most of the shuttle’s first two years of operation.

This is not the first time a free shuttle linked Jack London Square to other parts of downtown. Between 1996 and 2001, a free, lunchtime service between Embarcadero and Grand Avenue ferried 1,000 passengers a day before a lack of private funding forced it to shut down. The Oakland City Administrator expects that the new shuttle will carry 2,045 riders between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.

As Living in the O writes, Oakland city officials hope to expand the service into weekends and evenings. Living in the O notes that a downtown shuttle in Los Angeles, which started in the late 1980s, now boasts six lines.

Rather than view the new service as a competitor, AC Transit is helping the shuttle get started by offering three 30-feet buses from its fleet. The buses will be given new paint jobs, and according to City staff, will be “visually attractive vehicles… providing maximum visibility and appeal to people who do not normally ride buses.”

A convenient connection between Jack London Square and its neighbors north of I-880 has long been viewed as essential to bringing about the district’s revival. City planners view the Broadway Shuttle as a first step toward realizing a 40-year-old goal of reestablishing streetcar service from the water to the northern edges of downtown.

In addition to aiding the evolution of Jack London Square and Uptown into East Bay entertainment hubs, the shuttle will simplify commutes for many downtown workers who use other forms of public transportation. For example, the ferry terminal will now be connected to downtown office buildings by the frequent and free shuttle. City planners also hope that the shuttle will attract more employers to open businesses in downtown Oakland.