Saving BART Disinvestment to Reinvestment: Saving BART

by Nishita Dashpuyte

Faithfully serving the San Francisco Bay Area for the last 50 years, the sharp beep of the Clipper card as you tap out of a BART station is all too familiar to UC Berkeley students and Bay area natives alike. Yet, despite the best intentions of local policy makers, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) threatens to permanently shut down due to severe economic deficits caused by a lack of ridership and constant expansion costs.

Opening in 1972, BART was designed with the intention of transporting employees from Bay Area suburbs to their employers in San Francisco in a postwar world. Additionally, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit Commission hoped to reduce traffic and “dependence on automobiles and freeways”. Initial construction of the railway took 15 years and $1.6 billion, with much of this money coming from a bond issue in conjunction with federal grants and additional investments from the San Francisco business community.

From the beginning, BART had some issues. Planners in the early stages of BART’s development envisioned the growth of communities alongside BART corridors, yet more development occurred in freeway dominated areas, such as in the city of San Ramon. Furthermore, BART also failed to generate significant high density housing around stations, which negatively impacted lower-income residents who tend to gravitate towards high density housing programs. A study con- ducted in the 1970s revealed that few people further from the station preferred BART, since it was often slower than a car and only slightly faster than a bus.

Despite some of its failures, BART also had significant successes, playing a key role in paving the way for San Francisco to become the economic hub of the Bay Area³. More importantly, BART has offered commuters without personal vehicles an affordable and fast way to travel across the region––a commodity other major cities in California like Los Angeles do not offer.

As a bustling transit system, BART ridership steadily increased over the years, with trains packed full with commuters during the hours of 8-9 AM and 5-6 PM. However, ridership sharply declined following the COVID-19 pandemic with only essential workers commuting as other employees transitioned to working from home, sparking financial collapse.

But BART’s economic problems started before the pandemic, with expansion costs eclipsing revenue generated by fares. These were only exacerbated by the pandemic as BART is largely rider funded, with 70% of operational costs covered by fares. While the system received some state and federal funding, the severe economic debt has pushed BART to a fiscal cliff, from which it may not ever recover.

In the case of financial bankruptcy, 80% of BART’s services would be cut. This reduction would have a severely disproportionate impact on transit-dependent populations, which primarily consist of lower income families or economically vulnerable individuals. BART currently serves a mission to create a more equitable future, but these cutbacks would aggravate economic disparities and undermine the system’s mission statement.

As the world returns to in-person services, many public transit systems are rebounding, such as New York City’s subway system, which has set pandemic-era records for ridership. BART has struggled to meet this standard, as it fails to attract choice riders. Choice riders are those who consciously choose between modes of transportation while transit dependent riders are those who depend on public transit as their primary form of mobility. Thanks to its affordability, transit dependent riders have returned to BART. However, choice riders are driven away due to BART’s lack of safety, cleanliness, and infrequency of trains, according to Vice President of Public Policy at the Bay Area Council Emily Loper.

Drastic changes are required in both these aspects of the system, as the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked elevated public health concerns. These qualms have not gone unnoticed by BART, prompting them to hire safety ambassadors, shifting their safety personnel from armed officers to trained social workers to de-escalate situations. More- revenue to BART improvements. Once this money is available, BART will be able to implement its goals to a stronger degree, further attracting choice riders. “[ . . .] if you have a comfortable, enjoyable way to get back downtown, people do it, it’s just that we need to make BART feel that safe, clean, and enjoyable,” says Loper. over, BART has also begun to improve system cleanliness through the relocation of unhoused persons and improvement of station lights. Increasing the frequency of trains will serve to not only alleviate the safety concern of riders, but also make BART easier to use and simply hop on, attracting those choice riders BART desperately needs.

Tejus Shankar, a policy analyst in the transportation sector, also believes a key piece is getting riders from the very first mile to the last, demanding the growth of microtransit (shared mini buses with flexible stops) and micro mobility (bikes and scooters), a policy that Loper also strongly supports.

“The more likely people are to bike, the more likely they are to take public transit,” Shankar said, emphasizing the need to strengthen other forms of transit. Improving network connectivity increases the ease of public transit, convincing potential riders to shift to BART.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest barrier to further improvements is the lack of funding. In response to this, Regional Measure 3, implemented in part by Loper, increased bridge tolls and allotted a significant portion of its

From its genesis, BART has aimed to serve the residents and commuters of the Bay Area, but in the last few years, it has been unable to adequately do so. The lack of safety, cleanliness, and frequency of BART trains has driven many choice riders away, reducing the system’s revenue, and ultimately leading to disinvestment. Losing the invaluable services BART provides would paralyze many transit dependent riders and low income communities who cannot afford the rising costs of owning a personal vehicle. Though BART’s economic situation continues to become more dire, policymakers across the field argue that the system can be revived through a combination of rider support and reinvestment, inspiring hope for the future of BART and other public transit in the Bay.