Marta cano4/8/2023 ![]() It provided unprecedented subsidies to the nation’s transit agencies, helping them avert doomsday-level cuts in service. Those deep cuts, agency officials say, could lead to the demise of BART.Ī Bay Area without BART, however unimaginable, would further fragment public transit, worsen traffic congestion on highways and bridges, and erode the natural flow of a region so profoundly shaped by the rail system.Īfter transit ridership fell to all-time lows in April 2020 during the depths of the pandemic, the federal government stepped in with a temporary lifeline. In its worst-case scenario, BART would impose mass layoffs, close on weekends, shutter two of its five lines and nine of its 50 stations and run trains as infrequently as once per hour. Its pre-COVID ridership is unlikely to return in the next decade, making BART’s future especially perilous as transit agencies across the Bay Area and the nation project massive budget shortfalls. Now, the business model that had been both an outlier and a point of pride for the Bay Area’s regional rail system could become its undoing.īART is the connective tissue for the Bay Area’s public-transit network, but has had one of the nation’s most anemic ridership recoveries, down roughly 60% of 2019 figures, since telework took hold across the region. rail agency in 2019 had a higher farebox recovery ratio - the percentage of operating expenses covered by fares - than BART.Įven in tough economic times, the system stayed afloat - and expanded - as long as commuters packed into BART trains, making it a standard-bearer for financial self-sustainability in the transit world. ![]() ![]() When it came to financial independence, none of the largest transit agencies in the country did it better than BART.įares have been the bedrock of BART’s financial model ever since its first trains zipped across the Bay Area 50 years ago. ![]()
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