Before the pandemic, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) earned more than 70 percent of its operating costs out of fare revenues, more than any transit agency in the nation other than CalTrain. Ironically, this also made it most vulnerable to a ridership downturn, while agencies like San Jose’s Valley Transportation Authority, which covered only 9 percent of its operating costs out of fares (the fourth worst among the nation’s transit agencies), were relatively immune. Now BART is pleading for more money so it won’t have to dramatically reduce service as it exhausts federal COVID relief funds.
Click image to download a 12.6-MB PDF of this report.
As part of that plea, BART published a report on its role in the Bay Area earlier this week. The report admits that BART’s ridership has dropped — as of May, it carried less than 45 percent as many riders as before the pandemic — due to increases in remote work. “BART ridership is closely linked to office occupancy rates,” says the report, with an accompanying graphic showing that ridership has moved in almost exact parallel to San Francisco-Berkeley-Oakland office occupancies.
Despite the increase in remote work, the report notes, “traffic is back, but people are traveling in ways that result in uneven ridership retention.” In other words, they are no longer traveling in directions that BART can take them.
BART was created primarily to maintain the dominance of downtown San Francisco over the region. Many people knew that, which was why voters in half the region’s counties rejected the 1962 tax measure that funded BART, meaning for many years BART served only three of the six core Bay Area counties and why even today all but one of BART’s lines go to or through downtown San Francisco.
BART claims it is adapting to changes in people’s travel habits, but when rail lines take years to plan and build and cost hundreds of millions of dollars per mile, agencies like BART can’t truly adapt to major shifts in travel habits. Instead, all it can do is run a few more trains during the mid-day period when many remote workers do much of their travel. Clearly, this hasn’t done much to boost BART ridership.
Instead, the bulk of this report shows how BART is “adapting” to reduced ridership by coming up with new justifications for increased subsidies. BART lowers the cost of living. BART helps meet housing goals. BART keeps cars off the road. BART helps downtown recovery. BART promotes equity and sustainability.
BART doesn’t really do many of these things. The ones that it does do, it doesn’t do very well. And there are much better tools and ways of achieving these goals than a transit agency reliant on a 120-year-old technology.
Take, for example, BART’s claim that it helps meet state housing goals. What it means is that it is subsidizing the construction of new housing near its stations. This is an example of mission creep that results from the state’s misguided notion that most if not all new housing should be high-density housing — meaning housing that costs more and that people find less desirable than single-family housing — along transit lines, both to promote transit and to avoid having to expand the region’s urban-growth boundaries.
In essence, BART is subsidizing housing in the hope that some of the residents of that should will ride its subsidized trains. In fact, the Bay Area could easily meet housing demand without any subsidies by abolishing the rigid urban-growth boundaries used by every county in the region other than San Francisco (which is entirely urbanized and so doesn’t need a boundary).
Then there is the claim that BART lowers the cost of living, which it supposedly does by allowing people to live without cars. But the 2022 American Community Survey found that only 8.5 percent of the region’s workers lived in households without cars, and of those only 28 percent took transit to work. In other words, just 2.4 percent of the region’s workers saved money by living without an automobile and taking transit instead. To subsidize those workers, BART wants all Bay Area residents to pony up increased tax dollars.
Nor is BART particularly equitable. Less than 12 percent of the Bay Area’s low-income workers take transit to work, and a lot of them relied on buses, not BART. Since most tax increases to support BART will be regressive, that means that some 90 percent of low-income households will disproportionately pay for BART rides they rarely if ever take.
Most of the comments on an ABC News article about this report focus on how BART has glossed over the increased crime that has turned away passengers, including the recent murder of a 74-year-old woman who was pushed in front of a train.
BART’s main response is to argue that people are more likely to be killed in an auto accident than to be murdered on a BART train. This won’t change the fact that people feel safer in their cars than on board trains that carry “criminals, drug users, and homeless” people, to quote one of the comments. BART also says that it is installing new entrance gates to deter fare evaders from boarding trains, but the jury is still out on whether that will make potential riders feel safer.
The real problem is that BART no longer makes sense. In a dynamic urban economy, one in which jobs move around almost as often as people, an expensive, downtown-centric rail system was the wrong technology for the Bay Area or any modern urban area. Instead, the region should have relied on an improved bus network that could serve all major economic centers rather than just downtown San Francisco, downtown Oakland, and one or two others.
If BART is only carrying half as many riders as it did before the pandemic, then it should get no more than half the subsidies it was getting. BART instead wants taxpayers to give it more subsidies on grounds that were questionable before the pandemic and are even more specious when ridership is so much lower. State and local policy makers should reject any proposals for increased taxes to BART.
If transit does not want to adapt to changes in lifestyle and transportation patterns but continues to use taxmoney to perpetuate its status quo; what are they accomplishing?
At its peak Fords Chariot van service carried 7000 people with fleet 100 vans thru both city if San Francisco and suburban job centers til SFMATA and government shut it down. BART has 50 stations, 50!, that’s it. Draw an imaginary circle .25 miles in radii; it’s what you can “Walk” in a so called 15 minute city and most stations don’t even occur in SF central area but annex north and north East.
California gave million migrants driver licenses thou most cant read English or road signs in their own language.
-Non-whites make up more HALF all traffic infractions
– Cities decriminalized jaywalking in name bereft for People of Color who were “unfairly” targeted by police or tickets.
Rise in pedestrian fatalities and increase in private driving is not coincidence. Cops decided to stop basic traffic enforcement, In the name of racial equity. The last time cops were on hook traffic altercation; Some hopped up junkie died in police custody and people who didn’t care about him when he was alive, caused TENS of billions of dollars in damage. Many police departments largely gave up on traffic enforcement; because they don’t want another Race riot from escalated traffic stops. 1,000 pedestrian funerals on the other hand; far cheaper cleaning up after full blown chimp out.
Paris & its suburbs added 126 mi of metro, regional rail & tramway since 2010. In next 7 years, an additional 169 mi will be completed. By 2031, Paris’s metro will be 88% longer than in 2010.
https://x.com/yfreemark/status/1811115551676117366
More from the author on how other cities can learn from Paris’ successes:
https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/how-cities-can-use-paris-model-implementing-safer-street-infrastructure
Transits relevance to urban economics is less important because urban areas are becoming less relevant to economy.
In 2014, several new jitney-like services started operating in San Francisco, taking passengers in buses and vans along fixed-routes for individual fares. PRIVATE TRANSIT VEHICLES or PTV’ were strictly regulated by Muni. PTV routes must complement, rather than compete with, Muni. In the 1970s they underwent a rapid decline when the City stopped issuing new jitney permits and BART opened along Mission Street. They soon almost entirely disappeared, and after a couple decades only one jitney remained traveling between Market Street and the Caltrain Station at peak times. In 2011, after taxis and other vehicles for hire like jitneys came under the jurisdiction of the SFMTA, the SFMTA Board repealed the old jitney regulations, while leaving a placeholder in the code for new regulations for these types of services to be implemented in the future. What SFMATA doesn’t say is how they enacted regulation, they just crop Jitney decline to Some unforseen circumstance.
People who drive cars pay their capital cost, pay for maintenance, pay for fuel/power and pay to park them.
If public transit is such a good deal, then its capital and operational costs should be paid from the farebox — a bargain for users.
The day will come when government entities will no longer be able to service their debt. Locals are already relying on federal money.
That which cannot go on forever won’t.
That would be amazing if drivers paid the full costs of their car trips. Would pay for free public transit by itself and then some.
If driving doesn’t pay for itself, why it’s expected to pay for systems they don’t use?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congestion_pricing_in_New_York_City
You do realize, janehavisham, don’t you, your previous statement is not only very incorrect but logically nonsensical. If drivers paid the full costs of their car trips it would pay for their car trips, no less and no more.
Maybe 3% of crashes like this are caught on video. We can’t even comprehend the level of destruction cars create.
https://x.com/CoachBalto/status/1811194090920317289
So the damage done by out of control vehicles slamming buildings would enough to pay mass transit. I don’t think those numbers add up.
The Bay Area Rapid Transit system is the only operating railroad in the United States to use 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge, otherwise known as “Indian Gauge” as common in India/Nepal/Pakistan. The original engineers chose the wide gauge for its “great stability and smoother riding qualities”
Reality engineers thought of weight distribution on possbily uneven terrain and because BART cars are 15,000 lbs lighter than typical heavy rail subway cars, worries of derailment from wind shear (A common weather occurance in coastal bay areas)
This has complicated maintenance of the system, as it requires custom wheelsets, brake systems, and track maintenance vehicles. Normally trainset’s get replaced every 20-25 years; BART had to keep it going for over 40.
“So the damage done by out of control vehicles slamming buildings would enough to pay mass transit. I don’t think those numbers add up.”
The old piece of shit who killed the people in this incident can’t pay for what he did, so his fellow drivers need to step up.
So, if somebody kills someone with a kitchen knife his fellow knife wielders need to step up?
janehavisham wrote, “That would be amazing if drivers paid the full costs of their car trips. Would pay for free public transit by itself and then some.”
What cost of driver’s car trips is not paid by drivers? “The State of Ohio applies a tax rate of twenty-eight cent per gallon on motor vehicle fuel.”
Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax Revenue
More interesting is the Ohio Turnpike which was built, operated and maintained using revenue from vehicle tolls. In the past few years it was completely re-engineered and re-built using bond funds that will be repaid solely from Ohio Turnpike tolls.
The model is there.
Many older folks are driving these days, allowing them freedom and mobility that was previously denied to earlier generations. But are our existing storefronts, designed for a dense urban environment that no longer exists, ready for these elderly drivers’ upcoming adventures in mobility?
https://x.com/Boenau/status/1811815283922731095
If SUVs were a country, they would be the world’s fifth largest emitter of CO2
https://www.iea.org/commentaries/suvs-are-setting-new-sales-records-each-year-and-so-are-their-emissions
PARATRANSIT services can move anybody…
regardless of age, they’re merely expensive……… currently available in almost every American city, yet their use is limited to seniors and disabled people. They are expensive to provide because few people use them, but using an app-based system to expand their use to everyone might make them economically competitive with many fixed-route systems. Then systems emerge from DEREGULATED transit market to serve
young, old, disabled or anybody who doesn’t have a car.
I’m all for making cities/towns More walk/bike friendly, but the speed of walking and biking is inferior to automobile based transportation.
Urban streets unencumbered can move 600 vehicles per hour, with high capacity vehicles like vans/mini buses, private/semi-private enlisted paratransit services can move 3000-24000 people an hour without 40 foot buses.
The transportation crisis in USA is result of people being denied adequate access to transportation. FOR LONG time.
1950s: NIG*** get back of the bus
1970s: banning jitney services in SF and West coast cities
1980s: Light rail, suspension Bus services in LA, leading NAACP lawsuits
1990s: Portland spent billions on light rail, and let streets rot
2000s: Music city star
Transportation departments have plenty of money, they don’t have wisdom or concern to use it for transportation.
What life is like in an unfree country, where mobility is highly restricted:
https://x.com/Lucyincanada/status/1811295753014284792
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lH2gMNrUuEY/sddefault.jpg
Off by a lot
what life is like where 200 Million people are not only monitored but restricted to where they can travel, in a nation with 22,000 km of High speed rail and 30,000 lane miles of new highway a year.
The size of the bicycle is testament to it’s lack of utility.
It doesn’t protect you from other vehicles
doesn’t protect you from inclement weather
it’ doesn’t even have measure in place to keep you from falling off… less it’s tricycle XD.
NONE OF which is matters. Because modal split data speaks for itself
USA: 85%
EU-27: 80%
My the difference.
Biggest reason Europeans ride bikes is how European society functions: In Europe it is extremely rude to ask “What do you do for a living”
Huge swaths of population are unemployed or under employed. In Sweden, 1/3 working populace is state employed, hence wide dispersal of biking for urban jobs in civic work.
The sheer quantity of Europeans who work in other countries is mindboggling. Sweden, nearly 1/10th it’s population left other countries since 2000.
France, UK, Germany…. multi-month work in other countries is common.
EUROPE is a nice place to bike, not a nice place to Bike to work.
Urban planners failed “Vision Zero” policy of inconveniencing drivers continues to take lives
https://x.com/StreetsblogNYC/status/1811931803021684818
janehavisham wrote, “Urban planners failed “Vision Zero” policy of inconveniencing drivers continues to take lives”
Generally speaking, there are places for cars (rural highways for example) and places for pedestrians (NYC for example). They can be mixed carefully (well-designed low speed suburban streets with sidewalks for example). Changing NYC will be costly. Most suburbs are in pretty good shape already and for the most part have the money and will to improve. Crowded and mostly broke big cities are a problem.
So why are some people pushing for more dense cities?
“The wildland-urban interface — where human development intermingles with wild places such as forests, grasslands and scrublands — is the fastest-growing land-use type in the United States.”
“An estimated 1 in 3 houses in the country is now situated in these wildfire-prone landscapes, and now half the population in the West live there, said Kimiko Barrett, a wildfire policy expert at Headwaters Economics”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-25/la-me-california-fire-parks-population
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-07-11/allstate-seeking-34-rate-increase-for-california-homeowners-insurance
Interesting tool that lets you compare road damage that various vehicles cause (so we can get a sense of how much more SUV drivers should be paying per distance traveled as I think we all agreed above about):
https://roaddamagecalculator.com/?vehicle_one=longtail-cargo-bike&vehicle_two=large-suv
The “road damage calculator” extrapolates conclusions way outside of the range of loads that was studied in the AASHO Road Test. The calculator’s results are meaningless.
Yesterday, Xi’an opened its first BYD Yunba line. A 17.5km long 18 station local circulator line for the Xi’an’s Hi-tech Development Zone. The line has connections with Xi’an Metro Line 3 and 6.
https://twitter.com/JRUrbaneNetwork/status/1811846105807942069
Also…
China’ trains….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohpwJUcMuN0
The London Underground is dirty and grotty, but it is decades old, and nobody worries about it collapsing. It was used during ww2 as public bomb shelters, it was so well built.
New York City Subway is century old, it is dirty and grotty, Last time a NYC subway collapsed like that was the world trade line on september 11th, 2009, and before that, it was the Fort George subway tunnel in 1903
China…. Give us 2 weeks
“Remember, Paris wasn’t “always this way.”
It wasn’t even this way in late 2019 when I was last there.
Just a few years ago, #Paris was choking in car traffic much more.
This is new. This is leadership.
Cities are a result of choices.”
https://x.com/BrentToderian/status/1812701462000226721
Imagine if this country had bike highways that connected every city and town together?
https://x.com/the_transit_guy/status/1812837898959351875
You gonna bike from New York to Boston?
Bicycle: Average speed is no better than10 mph, not fast enough, Sure nice for everything within a 2.5 mile diameter.
E-Bike: 18-22 Mph. Sure some models go 25-30mph and even some go above 35 to 40. However that is suicidal. Cause the only thing that keeps it stable is it’s own locomotion and constant moving of the steering column. You so much as run over a bottlecap at 28 mph, you’re gonna eat pavement.
Walking: Even slower than bikes, Even healthy people can’t even walk a mile in 15 minutes.
Mass transit: fixed routes schedules, even worse, Crime, vandalism, lewd acts and just plain people you wouldn’t wanna meet in a dark alley, Hell Broad daylight.
Cars and motorcycles: direct transportation between an unlimited number of unique locations on your schedule
Which in Lies compromise.
PRIVATE transit: Van pools, Paratransit, Jitneys
Since Average vanpool has an occupancy 57%, they fill seats modestly well for the energy expenditure or effective as EV’s
https://greenpowermotor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ev-star-energy-california.jpg
And since they’re utilized in urban locations perfect for traffic, Unlike buses they are not 40 feet long, spew diesel noise and hard to navigate tight streets.
Who needs a car to go around town, When for modest rental fee, I can have an E-Bike…. In 2 hours, 22 minutes I can traverse a mere 19 miles.
https://x.com/i/status/1812840476438888664