Ramming Together Two Sinking Ships

The Titanic is sinking! Let’s save it by ramming it into another sinking ship. Maybe together they will survive.

This merger didn’t work out so well.

Probably not. But that seems to be the theory behind proposals to merge Caltrain, which runs commuter trains between San Jose and San Francisco, with the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART), which runs heavy-rail transit throughout the Bay Area.

Caltrain was spending $2 billion to electrify its trains, which was really a hidden subsidy to California high-speed rail, which was expected to use the Caltrain route for at least a few years. But now it admits that it is $330 million over budget and the electrification will be delayed for two years. Meanwhile, as of May 2021 its ridership was still less than 10 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

All this has led some people to propose merging Caltrain with BART. BART has its own problems, including the fact that in May it carried only 17 percent of pre-pandemic riders. But it has been the favored agency in the region, getting funding for projects that are expected to cost $100 per rider while bus projects that would cost less than $5 per rider were left unfunded.

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Merger advocates argue that merging BART and Caltrain into a new agency with an elected board would make them more efficient and more accountable to riders. There is no reason to think this is true. Both BART and Denver’s Regional Transit District have elected boards, but they aren’t noticeably more accountable to riders than agencies whose boards are appointed. The way to make transit more accountable to riders is to fund transit exclusively out of rider fares.

Beyond this, running a commuter-rail system is quite different from running a heavy-rail system. Schedules are different; the customer base is different; opportunities for expansion are different. BART trains can’t even roll on Caltrain tracks as the track widths are different (BART is 5-1/2′, Caltrain 4’8-1/2″). There is no reason to think that merging the two agencies will suddenly improve the expertise of one or the other.

Mergers of government bureaucracies rarely make them more efficient. Yet people often suggest such mergers when bureaucracies perform poorly. A survey of Bay Area voters found strong support for a merger, especially when surveyors told them that the merger “would provide more efficient, convenient and better service.” Yet there is no real reason to think that it would.

If you want to find out what’s wrong with a government agency, you need to follow the money. If you want to fix the problems with a government agency, you need to fix the way it gets its money. Mergers don’t do either and a merger of BART and Caltrain would waste both time and money on something with few benefits.