Does "Express Transit" target only the caster, or up to eight willing creatures?

Question

I've been reading the Unearthed Arcana to catalog spell availability/dice rolls, and found a particular feature of the City Cleric confusing.

According to Modern Magic's description of the City Cleric's "Express Transit" feature:

At 17th level, you can use mass transit routes to transport instantaneously to other points in the city. Starting from a bus stop, train station, subway stop, or other suitable mass transit site within the city, you can teleport to any other similar transit stop within the city, as if you had cast a teleport spell whose destination is a permanent teleportation circle you know. Once you use this feature, you must finish a short or long rest before using it again.

It states that you [presumably the caster] can teleport "as if you had cast a teleport spell." Does this only include the caster? A teleport spell can target "you and up to eight willing creatures of your choice that you can see within range," but the Express Transit text doesn't specify that you can bring anyone (or anything) with you.

Answer 1

You and up to eight willing creatures of your choice that you can see within range

The current reading says:

as if you had cast a teleport spell whose destination is a permanent teleportation circle you know

This means that you cast a teleport spell and the only thing that is changed from the normal reading of the spell is that you treat the target destination as permanent teleportation circle you know. Therefore the normal rules for the amount of people who are teleported still apply. If the description does not explicitly show any differences than you should go with the description of the spell that is explicitly mentioned.

Normal caveat: Unearthed Arcana is playtesting material

You can never know which parts of Unearthed Arcana will be released at a later time and which parts will be changed. Maybe you found a possible problem here. Maybe it's intended. The current Rules as Written that you cited imply that you can transport willing creatures with you. As your DM has to approve of Unearthed Arcana material anyway you should talk to him about this, too, so that you are on the same page. I would recommend to go with the literal reading of basically casting a normal teleportation spell with a known target location and see how that goes. It's playtesting material, so testing it in play is perfectly fine. And if it doesn't work out you can change it later.