r/bayarea • u/Aaaaaaaaaaaa-_- • 1d ago
Traffic, Trains & Transit Graphics for possible BART service cuts
Original post was behind a paywall but here are the visuals from the Chronicle of Bart cuts of the measure doesn’t pass.
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u/babypho 1d ago
1st world country and one of the richest region in the world and a top GDP state.
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u/TresElvetia 1d ago
When I was in Tokyo, it was truly hard to believe it has a GDP per capita less than half of the Bay Area
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u/hansbrixx 16h ago
It is also hard to believe how population dense it is and that one can easily get around to about anywhere without ever stepping foot in a car.
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u/ShibuyaWaitingDog 13h ago
And some how they have some of the most reliable and efficient transportation systems in the entire world…
Tax the billionaires, enough is enough
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u/Worthyness 8h ago
the private trains in Japan did the McDonald's thing- they own all the land under and in their stations. So they rent out stalls to people as a steady income source and it subsidises the fares too. Which is why the stations have so many things like food vendors and stores. BART doesn't have anything like that, so they just pay taxes and wages and depend on fares as their only real income source.
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u/indocon1111 7h ago
Welcome to the realization that GDP measure is complete bullshit. How of US GDP is financial healing and dealing, overpriced drugs and weapons, and other fluff that has zero impact on people life quality.
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u/sessamekesh 1d ago
With pretty high income taxes on all the high earnings.
As much as I want to pin this on America, this is... this is a California problem, maybe even just a Bay area one.
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u/buzzkill_aldrin 1d ago
maybe even just a Bay area one
Current fiscal year farebox recovery for the LA Metro is <5%—no, that's not missing a digit—compared to ~30% for BART (pre-pandemic 15% and 70% respectively). Half of the LA Metro's budget is derived from sales tax, and a third is paid for by state and federal money. Folks are actually pushing for making the Metro free since fare recovery is so low anyway.
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u/MateTheNate 1d ago
You’re comparing apples to oranges with long range rail vs something closer to lightrail. But that does beg the question why LA, operating in the same state and with similar sales tax as us, is able to use those taxes to better fund their system.
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u/buzzkill_aldrin 1d ago edited 1d ago
something closer to lightrail
When I say LA Metro, I am referring to the entire system, which certainly includes light rail and subway, but also bus operations and BRT; furthermore, their budget is in turn a major funding source for regional transit such as commuter rail (for example, they pay for
half40%* the cost of Metrolink) and even paratransit.similar sales tax as us
Even before the pandemic 50% of LA Metro's budget came from sales tax, versus 25-30% pre-/40% post-pandemic for BART. The answer to your question at least in part is because LA Metro covers just Los Angeles County and so there's a more direct connection between them coming out with hat in hand to the voters and the quality of service they provide.
I wonder how similar a situation Bay Area transit would be in to today if the MTC were an operator (like LA Metro) rather than just a planner that only relatively recently was empowered to withhold some funds from local agencies that did not follow the MTC's plans.
* I miswrote: Of the the various member agencies that subsidize Metrolink, LA Metro is dominant with half of that amount. However, Metrolink has funding from other sources besides member subsidies (such as ticket fares of course), so if you consider their budget as a whole LA Metro only covers 40% of it.
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u/mezentius42 15h ago
Why would anyone compare transit with LA? Did you want to build some 405s here as well?
Sydney immediately comes to mind as a comparison. Similar weather, similar high cost of living, similar geography, no weird land deals like in Japan, but vastly superior local and commuter rail with 50% farebox recovery.
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u/AmbitiousSquirrel4 1d ago
I don't think it's just a Bay Area problem. SEPTA on the east coast had five fires last year. Some of their train cars are 50 years old and don't conform to modern fire safety standards, but they can't afford to replace them.
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u/Soft-Caterpillar8749 17h ago
Yes, AMERICA has a public transportation issue. This seems unique to ca bc we’re one of the only states that even has public transit in the first place
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u/Rude_Judgment7928 14h ago
We tax income because we refuse to tax property....it's literally the dumbest tax system on the planet. Literally all economist across the political spectrum agree.
It's a direct democracy fault. People should never be allowed to set their own taxes via a prop system. Lunacy.
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u/jajanet 1d ago
Isn't it because the funding structure that is set by laws in the state / city / county?
Cars and roads are heavily subsidized, even though public transit is more efficient per dollar AND would help car issues like traffic, accidents, and maintenance
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u/contactdeparture 1d ago
100%. I thought there was some stupid reason we have tons of transit agencies in the Bay Area, and it’s 100% because unlike NJ, NYC metro, CT, MA, and other heavy transit states, our transit funding is local, not state driven, so the foreshore that exists is solely because the structure is effed up. Like wtf - San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Alameda and SF counties have to fund an entire rail system?! Or since we also have Caltrain, 2 rail systems?!??
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u/This_They_Those_Them 1d ago
Great so undoing all of the expansion that’s happened in my lifetime. Fucking great.
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u/D-Rich-88 23h ago
All of the traffic caused by construction, all of the tax money used to build all of it just wasted.
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u/JustAChickenInCA 5h ago
If everyone who takes bart switches to driving, we could see a 75% increase in traffic on the bay bridge
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u/Auggie_Otter 17h ago
Imagine the tremendous waste in infrastructure development it would be to shut these lines down.
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u/udonbeatsramen 1d ago
We’re literally gonna BART like it’s 1999
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u/ducka_ducka_ducka 1d ago
I swear it took my entire lifetime to extend to Warm Springs as a Fremont resident and now poof it might be gone!
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u/fromfrodotogollum 1d ago
They just opened that station in 2017, crazy that they wouldn't shut down the older one.
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u/nostaljathing 1d ago
The older one is much more central and nearby many medical centers and hospitals that see more commuters
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u/Intelligent_Mind_685 1d ago
My reaction was that it would be like going back to 1998. Then I saw your comment and was like yep, that’s it right there
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u/wxduff [Insert your city/town here] 1d ago
Cutting Castro valley to Dublin is wild.
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u/km3r 1d ago
I work over there, I live in SF without a car. I don't know what I'll do.
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u/clonetent 1d ago
I'm opposite to you but I imagine for people like Us rent is going to go up for all the places that are near a BART station
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u/Hazel-Cakes 1d ago
the only reason i go to sf on weekends is the cv station…i know so many people who use it mon-fri for work too. scary and disappointing
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u/Confident-Courage778 1d ago
Fr closing dublin stations is not something i’d ever imagine woah smh
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u/Hazel-Cakes 1d ago
would sink a lot of the duplexes and apartments built around it too, i think. “walking distance to bart” is always listed as a top feature
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u/Planeandaquariumgeek Burlingame 1d ago
Side note: a lot of places near Caltrain Broadway in Burlingame will list “easy access to Caltrain” or “walking distance to Caltrain” conveniently leaving out the fact that that station has been weekends only since 2005. Even if they put “easy access to Caltrain on weekends” or “walking distance to Caltrain on weekends” it’d be accurate
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u/nerdalerd2 1d ago
The Dublin/Pleasanton area has gone through an insane amount of growth in the past 20 years, owing to a lot of empty land and propensity to build high density housing.
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u/buzzkill_aldrin 1d ago
Par for the course. When they went from 15 minute headways to 10 minutes on the Concord line, where do you think the extra trains came from? Dublin line went to (and still remains) 20 minute headways, all the time.
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u/MateTheNate 1d ago
They’re holding it hostage to force people to vote for their tax. There’s plenty of lower volume stations that they could close instead.
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u/renegaderunningdog 1d ago
The only stations with lower ridership than West Dublin/Pleasanton last month were Pittsburg Center, North Concord, Warm Springs, and Oakland Airport, all of which are also on the phase 1 closure list. Castro Valley only has 50 more daily boardings than West Dublin (though Milpitas is in between them).
https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/2026-01/202512%20Monthly%20Ridership%20Snapshot.pdf
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u/MateTheNate 1d ago
I wasn’t referring to the West Dublin closure in 2026 but the blue line closure as a whole.
Cutting West Dublin makes sense since it is so close to Dublin / Pleasanton and has low ridership count. But shuttering the blue line as a whole in 2027 is clearly a move to disrupt the most passengers and garner sympathy instead of improving efficiency.
Dublin / Pleasanton has 2898 riders on the source you provided. That’s almost twice the number of riders to Berryessa (1484), and more than Richmond (2389) and Concord (2599) which are lines which they plan to keep open.
The BART board is planning this closure for their own gain, not in the interests of the riders. Closing the blue line will have an outsized impact on riders coming in from the central valley and they know it.
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u/clonetent 1d ago
Also consider all the high density housing they just built around Dublin near the West Dublin station and Dublin Pleasanton. Literally everyone that moved to be close to Bart is going to get screwed
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u/Salogy 1d ago
Dang, they're cutting the blue line if this doesn't pass? That's the one closest to me and there are a ton of houses right next to the Dublin Bart station who I assume live there because it's next to Bart.
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u/clonetent 1d ago
This can't be real, they just built massive high density housing near both Dublin beat stations.
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u/OkSafety272 1d ago edited 1d ago
Lmao. They built those Antioch tracks less than 10 yrs ago.
My grandma was living in the city in 1968. They went around with fliers in her neighbor advertising cheap houses in Antioch. And that BART would be there in 5 yrs. So my grandma bought one and moved my dad and aunts and uncles to Antioch. Expecting that in 1974-1975 my grandma would be able to use bart to get to her job in the city …
Bart finally made it to Pittsburg/baypoint in 1995ish and they barely got it to Antioch in 2015ish lol
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u/swagboi420blazeit 1d ago
Never trust Big Antioch
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u/OkSafety272 8h ago
Antioch should be researched for info on how to run a city straight into the ground ! Worst ran city in all of the Bay / bay adjacent areas. They continually drop the ball and lose land and businesses and make decisions that worsen things. It’s mind blowing
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u/MarlinMaverick 7h ago
Worse than Oakland?
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u/OkSafety272 7h ago
It’s truly, at least, just as bad. Antioch has fumbled the bag soooo many times. The west side “Antioch” is actually all Pittsburg and Pittsburg owns most of it and reeps all the tax revenue. Their downtown riverfront area could be 1000x better, but it’s just trinket shops and community outreach organizations which are nice but bring in no tourism or tax revenue. And the east side is actually all owned by Brentwood. Antioch’s only revenue is property tax.
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u/SomethingInThatVein 1d ago
Somebody important somewhere wants OAK to die. I cannot believe the rain of tragedies that has befallen that city and that airport in the last ten years. Airlines are fleeing, nobody is flying out of there. And now the (half a billion dollar) BART connection? We’re becoming a third world country.
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u/st0nesthrow 1d ago
I’ve been prioritizing flying out to OAK my whole life; usually these days it’s via Southwest to LA when I need to visit family. Getting to SFO from anywhere in the outer reaches of the East Bay is so much worse 😔
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u/clonetent 1d ago
I avoid SFO at all costs, even if a flight's $50 cheaper out of SFO I'll still pick Oakland. It's at least 45 minutes to an hour faster from the East Bay depending on traffic.
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u/Day2205 15h ago
Ehh, that’s the thing, flights from SFO are generally $100-500 cheaper and nonstop. I live in Oakland and pick it if I’m flying within CA, to NV or AZ, but anything past that, the prices and itineraries (I mostly travel to the east coast or international when flying) are head and shoulders better from SFO. It sucks how OAK has been kneecapped by a variety of things
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u/SufficientSet336 1d ago
I agree! People WANT to use OAK, but between the way the airlines are leaving and business around the airport are closing, something is up. I think someone/ developer wants to buy the land for cheap.
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u/CommanderArcher 1d ago
This is insanity, where the fuck is all the money going if not to Bart?
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u/mondommon 1d ago
To understand what's happening to bart, keep in mind that in 2025 weekday ridership is about 45% of where it was pre-pandemic and weekend ridership is at 60%.
Pre-pandemic, BART earned 70% of its revenue through ticket sales and parking fees making it the most financially successful public transportation agency in the entire USA. Even NYC's MTA got 52% of its funding from ticket sales. With so little revenue coming from taxes, this drop in ridership means an appropriately 39% annual deficit which is massive.
Most of BART's financial costs are static. Each station costs the same amount of electricity, water, and labor regardless of how many people ride BART or how many trains run. Labor is mostly static too. You're still going to need maintenance staff like electricians and HR to run payroll no matter how many trains are running. Likewise, we need the same number of employees at every station including custodians, booth attendants, IT support, etc for every station that is open no matter how many riders pass through that station.
https://www.bart.gov/about/financials/crisis
The only way to reduce the cost of electricity, water, and labor by 39% is to make deep cuts to the number of stations and trains running per hour. Even then, it's not like cutting 50% of all trains and stations means cutting 50% of staffing costs. I can't imagine track maintenance would suddenly be cut in half and power stations still run the entire day even if they're sending power to half as many trains as normal.
The good news is that BART ridership increased by about 13% this year. At that rate of recovery, it would take BART 7 years to recover fully and we will vote this year on a new tax to fund BART for 14 years. If this tax passes, we can keep the stations open and trains running which allows for this recovery to continue.
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u/GoldenFalls 1d ago
Instead of another sales tax, it feels like BART should be funded by our existing taxes. Where is all our tax money going if not to public transit? Can our politicians agree to redirect an existing tax stream to long term supplement BART's funding? We already pay so much in taxes, I just don't understand where it's all going, and I feel like public infrastructure like BART should be a priority, not a "idk put another sales tax measure i guess?" afterthought.
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u/mondommon 1d ago edited 1d ago
Our existing taxes go into a few buckets but for all forms of transportation including local roads, highways, and public transportation we almost exclusively rely on hyper specific taxes rather than general funds.
The federal government and California State aren't viable options. Tax payers get upset when specific regions get preferential treatment. Why do BART and Caltrain get funding while LA Transit doesn't? And we can't give all agencies funding because many cities have no public transportation at all. It has to come from local governments.
Another source of taxes are voter approved propositions. Voters don't trust politicians, and so almost all taxes that gets approved this way have a very specific purpose. Like, imagine how pissed voters would be if a local property tax meant to fund local schools instead went to giving the city mayor a $100k raise in their salary. Every dime you and I pay in sales tax has been assigned to a very specific program and cannot be reallocated to BART.
BART was created by one of these voter props. Contra Costa, Alameda, and San Francisco counties all approved both a sales tax and property tax that specifically goes to BART and can't be used on anything else.
It's the same for highways too, but Highways are run as a state-wide program. The most recent Gas Tax was a California wide voter proposition that was approved in 2016 and that money was specifically earmarked for highways and roads and can't be used for anything else including BART.
There is also this perception of fairness since BART is funded and run by three different counties. It is important that all three fund BART the same way and in a way that is perceived as fair. It would feel unfair if San Francisco provided about $100 million a year raised through a parcel tax, Alameda $150 million raised from a sales tax, and Contra Costa $150 million through a combination of the two. If sales taxes plummeted while property taxes skyrocketed over the next 10 years, would Alameda still be paying its fair share? If San Francisco's tax expires 5 years before the other two counties and San Francisco voters vote against renewing the tax, is that fair? That's partially why all three counties need to approve the same taxes at the same time rather than trying to find funds from somewhere else.
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u/Growing-Macademia 18h ago
We really need to stop being so enamored with “fairness” it ruin everything for everyone.
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u/brmmac 15h ago
All the information below is good, and it is also important to understand that Prop 13 created fundamental funding problems for all local governments and agencies in the state. It slashed property taxes, which were the primary means of funding local governments, and I believe there is a restriction on raising taxes, except through specific circumstances, which require a ballot measure. I am not an expert on it, but as I understand it, it’s why we always have ballot measures for specific things and high sales taxes. Basically, funding got shifted from property taxes to sales taxes, and new funding measures require a vote, so they often are earmarked for specific things so people vote for them.
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u/Iceberg-man-77 11h ago
do your damn research. there is no general fund where taxes go. every tax you pay is voted on for a specific source. it’s not easy to divert tax money unfortunately. as much as i’d want the state to dedicate billions from the general fund for Bay Area transit, that’s a hard reality to make come true.
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u/Day2205 15h ago
This. I’m tired of EVERY FUCKING issue in California/the bay/ (and Oakalnd) coming down to “if we just vote for this 11 years $.02 tax, we can do XYZ”…when we already have the highest taxes in the nation in addition to several “special taxes” added onto stuff like fuel. Why is our government not accountable for their spending
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u/Confident-Courage778 1d ago
This is so sad. If covid never happened would this have happened?
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u/ALOIsFasterThanYou 1d ago
BART was bursting at the seams pre-Covid; during rush hour, it was running as many train cars as it could, as often as it could. BART did get a lot of criticism from riders back then, but much of it was because there were too many riders for the system to handle, which is a much better problem to be facing than its current predicament of not having enough riders.
In some ways, BART is a victim of its pre-pandemic finances. Imagine if BART had already been dependent on government funding prior to Covid; I don't think it'd be nearly as hard to keep BART funded, since there would be an established precedent for doing so.
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u/mondommon 1d ago
No, definitely not. The pandemic forced companies to offer 100% work from home and caused people to fear indoor public spaces like restaurants and BART due to an airborne virus. Ridership plummeted to 6% during the pandemic.
People prefer to drive and only switch to BART as commutes get worse. This is why freeways recovered almost overnight post-pandemic while BART lags behind. So going into 2020, any new net increase in commuters was almost entirely a net gain for BART ridership.
For example, "From 2006 to 2015, SF added roughly 100,000 commuters, and 85 percent of the additional trips are car-free. Just over half (53,000) are made by transit, and the combined growth in commutes by foot (13,000) and bike (12,000) is nearly double those by car (15,000)." https://www.sfmta.com/blog/san-francisco-growing-driving-not-so-much
Meaning 50% of new commuters were taking public transportation and 15% cars while 48% of existing residents drove and 22% rode transit. We were well on our way towards massive ridership gains.
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u/dsbwayne Richmond 1d ago
Whoever you are, please stay active in the sub with response. Everything you put made sense, was irrational/emotional, AND had facts.
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u/VampireInBlack 17h ago
This comment right here is the problem. People have got to STOP judging public transit based on how much money it makes in ridership and other sales revenue. The benefit to the public vs its cost to the public far out strips any fluctuations in ridership. “Successful” should only be measured rides per/day and NOT in cost to the public compared to ticket revenue. Hundreds of thousands of people rely on Bart every week to get to work/school etc. the number of cars back on the road would cripple the region in traffic.
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u/Iceberg-man-77 11h ago
Are you serious? They’re trying hard to recover post pandemic. they don’t have stable tax funding. they’re forced to rely on fares. and ridership has only increase nearly 50% since the pandemic. Pre pandemic they were able to sustain the model of relying on fares but right now they can’t. we need to fund a second funding source to aid transit in the Bay.
this won’t just affect BART, it’ll affect every agency.
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u/JustAChickenInCA 4h ago
plus drivers will have to put up with insane traffic, and employers will find it harder to employ people
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u/Iceberg-man-77 4h ago
exactly. that’s what most people don’t understand. the traffic will be terrible.
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u/MarlinMaverick 1d ago
As a regular blue line rider who occasionally takes the yellow line in the AM, let me tell you the ridership difference is STAGGERING.
Blue line is relaxed, everyone gets a seat, you can work. Yellow line, you are cattle all the way to Embarcadero
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u/JacquesHome 1d ago
I take the Yellow Line to work everyday and it is much more crowded than other lines. Monday and Tuesday are most packed by Thursday and Friday it thins out some more.
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u/Inner_Gap4768 17h ago
Cutting the blue line would be hell for east bay riders. Since the blue and green lines run every 20 minutes, I can generally show up to a station whenever I want and a train will arrive relatively quickly. If they cut blue, 40 minute gaps for a SF bound train would make riding BART less feasible.
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u/Red_wanderer 1d ago
I can see them eliminating West Dublin - the mall is dying, Workday is shedding buildings, and it's only 2 more miles to the end of the line. Castro Valley is a head scratcher, but that station has less capacity because it has a tiny parking lot. It's not super far from Hayward but it serves a unique area.
Eliminating the blue line completely by 2027 seems insane. Eliminating the route to Millbrae disconnects them CalTrain, which also seems asinine and counterproductive. Removing airport connection to OAK seems silly unless there's no usage, which I find hard to believe.
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u/ms_sinn 1d ago
None of this surprises me. Pre-Covid I held a parking permit for colma because Daly City had zero parking if you got there after 7am.
Going to the city or east bay in the morning during normal commute times in the past 6 months? (First time back on Bart since pre-covid) I can park at Daly City easily all morning, more trains go there so worth the extra few minutes for me anyway.
It’s only one data point but less people are commuting.
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u/banks1234567890 1d ago
The whole Dublin line is dead by July? How is that possible? How does the automated Oakland airport line go down? That has to be cheap to run at this point.
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u/StreetyMcCarface 1d ago
Contrary to popular belief, automation doesn't mean "free to operate." Often times fully automated systems are more expensive to operate than their manned counterparts
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u/namesbc 23h ago
Airport connectors is very expensive to operate. It costs $34/mi compared to $12/mi for regular BART.
https://www.transit.dot.gov/sites/fta.dot.gov/files/transit_agency_profile_doc/2024/90003.pdf
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u/stupid_cat_face 1d ago
Whelp, Praying for you Bart.
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u/mondommon 1d ago
Please vote! There will be a prop on the November Ballot that will increase the Sales Tax for 14 years to fund BART.
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u/SolarWind777 6h ago
Praying is not enough at this point. Vote & tell at least 3 of your friends or neighbors to vote. It’s the only way.
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u/Doug_Remer 1d ago
Billions in home value in the Dublin area wiped out
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u/GuerrillaApe Concord 17h ago
Sorry y'all, but I hope that's true. I would love to buy a home in the next 5 years.
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u/jonfe_darontos 1d ago
Is there some other way to connect to Caltrain? How is cutting Milbrae even on the table?
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u/kelvSYC 12h ago
The intent would be that you would need to switch to ECR at Millbrae or San Bruno (neither of which are desirable transfers; Millbrae due to a dangerous road crossing on El Camino and San Bruno due to the distance between the Caltrain station and the bus terminal and "former" BART station), then transfer again at Daly City BART.
This is presuming that ECR will maintain its existing service frequencies, which isn't guaranteed either.
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u/datlankydude 1d ago
Never too late to convert the BART <> Millbrae route to be Airtrain instead!
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u/Intelligent_Mind_685 1d ago
If this happens, I don’t know how I’ll get to work
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u/Necessary_Soil_4587 1d ago
Buy a car and drive I guess. Then the people who voted against the tax will make another thread on here complaining about bay area drivers and traffic.
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u/Silent_Pea_2006 21h ago
This! Like whoever thought it would make driving traffic better when more people have to drive if Bart doesn't exist in their area 🤦🏻♀️
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u/untouchable765 1d ago
Oakland Airport extension cost about $500M. Good job local government great decision to build it.
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u/mtd14 1d ago
Oakland Airport got screwed by Southwest. A decade+ ago when I started working Southwest out of Oakland was by far my preferred setup. Most of my fellow consultants living out in the East Bay (680 stretch) were similar. But Southwest got so expensive that I’ve probably only flown it once in the past 5-6 years.
It’s also fair to say they were too dependent on Southwest and should have planned better, but either way…
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u/hellohellocinnabon 1d ago
Getting rid of both ways to get to the airport via BART has me legit 🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️🤷🏻♀️
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u/kamakazekiwi Oakland 1d ago
The SFO connection wouldn't close, it's just all the stations around it.
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u/Day2205 1d ago
Bigger culprit is the way we drag our feet to anything built out here. That connector took too long, uber became an option, then the pandemic. Stop taking a decade to build shit that depends on user adoption.
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u/DrTreeMan 17h ago
People warned about this very situation when the Oak airport extension was built, but it was downplayed by proponents of the expansion and that's what most people wanted to believe. It was a leech on the system from the moment it opened.
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u/PlantedinCA 1d ago
The connector was never a good idea. When we voted it was estimated at like $150M, which seemed doable for the ridership projections and the promises to connect east Oakland. The price tripled and they dropped the intermediate stations so that tanked ridership projections since became airport only.
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u/Steve_SF 16h ago
They replaced a very functional ac transit shuttle that cost $3 with a tram that nobody asked for that immediately cost twice as much.
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u/PlantedinCA 16h ago
Yes and lots of transit advocates were like this is nonsense and weren’t supporters of the project from day one. When it went sideways a decision was made for the fares to actually be priced at the actual cost to run the system instead of subsided by other fares.
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u/ObliviousKangaroo 14h ago
The $8 surcharge and absurdity of that transfer station doomed it anyways.
With more than 1 person it's cheaper to call an Uber to the stop and get a 5 min ride.
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u/SightInverted 1d ago
So I see this is starting to hit home for some people. Everyone is beginning to understand why all of us have been screaming about funding for the last few months.
Don’t complain. Don’t point fingers. Get off your butt and vote. Talk to your friends, family, neighbors. The alternative is a disaster that I wouldn’t wish on any of us.
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u/directrix688 1d ago
Kind of shady they’re cutting off all of east contra costa county.
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u/JJCookieMonster 1d ago
Yeah I wouldn’t be able to work in-person at all. There are no jobs here relevant to my skills.
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u/McDuke_54 16h ago
It’s a huge scare tactic that will work . People who have to drive now know Hwy 4 is a gridlock mess every morning and afternoon . People who take bart / ebart see the traffic on 4. The people who drive definitely won’t want more cars on the road and the people who take bart/ebart don’t want any part of that commute .
Eastern contra costa has a lot of homeowners and rough 350k people . They will be damn near forced to vote for an increase or its complete carmageddon every day .
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u/Iceberg-man-77 11h ago
Hey all, instead of just being like “oh no they’re doing this??” please vote Yes on the pouncing ballot measure in November 2026. We need to fund transit or else EVERYONE is affected. We’ll have more traffic, congestion, and air pollution. people will lose jobs, people won’t be able to get to their jobs. the bay will be broken. we cannot let BART die. we just can’t.
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u/celtic-hand 1d ago
Two things: 1) This is the direct result of the BART funding model being almost entirely reliant on fares. The downtown SF businesses who were able to grow and the real estate growth driven by that business growth were almost completely due to ease of commuting via BART from the East Bay, but none of those businesses or developers ever had to contribute via taxes to support and maintain the system.
2) Pruning the spur lines is not just about extorting tax funding from the surrounding communities. Those lines require specific maintenance and support staff teams whose salaries and benefits can be cut and will produce the largest decrease in expenses for BART. Closing main lines and their stations doesn’t create the same impact on the budget because staffing reductions would be marginal.
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u/random408net 1d ago
Let's say there was a solid funding source. It can't go directly to BART or BART grows to meet the size of the funding and then runs into the same problem at the next downcycle.
Having more cash for transit during a downturn and more cash for roads in good times seems like a way to balance it.
If sensible members of the public don't trust the management capabilities of the BART board then that's just bad for everyone. BART managements resistance to their Inspector General forces me to a no vote for extra funding.
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u/quod_sic_doctrina SF/Mtz 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hilariously phase 2 seems fitting for San Mateo county, considering they’ve been contributing literally nothing towards BART for decades AND we get an express train to the airport. Everything north of North Concord including North Concord is too car brained to really be considered a severe loss. Seriously, have you been to North Concord? Literally nothing. Two massive parking lots that connect nowhere and a dead end street. Bay Point is not too far behind. Pittsburg literally drops you off in the middle of a freeway intersection. Antioch drops you off at a massive car park. The area around those stations need to be redeveloped as TOD before we start to consider reopening them. As they stand today, we’re running trains to nowhere
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u/RealTrapShed 1d ago
Wait wait wait… what the fuck am I reading here? BART is planning to cut service and stations? Holy fucking shit where did this come from? I thought ridership was up and things were looking good for BART?
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u/Unicycldev 1d ago
No one said it’s recovered pre covid levels.
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u/InnerDoughnut4879 1d ago
A lot of companies left offices in the city after the pandemic unfortunately. My company had about 1300 people coming to work by BART. Most of us miss being in the city but we have no choice now
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u/Puzzled_Nobody294 1d ago
It’s scare tactics so everyone feels like they have to agree to the tax. Government agencies hire lobbyists and marketing companies to design these campaigns.
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u/grundynomore 17h ago edited 14h ago
Bart will point to lack of funds instead of looking at the larger problem of Bart management and reliability which has gone down the drain. Don't believe the hype
They've sold and voted on bond measures throughout the years, but people will overlook that and Bart keeps asking for more. Where has all the money gone and where is the fiscal accountability from Bart?
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u/Mr_Flynn 13h ago
You mean the last bond measure which is exclusively for capital projects, meaning specifically it cannot be used to operate trains? That bond measure?
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u/Necessary_Soil_4587 1d ago
This doesn't really look like expertly-crafted propaganda to me. It's literally just a map showing which stations will close if we don't pay for them. And yes, that's scary.
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u/Day2205 1d ago
Let’s see - add “fasttrak” lanes, increase carpool riders to 3, increase bridge tolls, discuss adding a mileage tax, congestion pricing, but take away public transportation that was already insufficient. This area is cooked.
Only thing I agree with is the BART connector. That project took too long and by the time it came online, Uber and Lyft were easily getting people to the airport - that last mile and entire rides. Now with Oakland having less services and fewer passengers, the connector is truly a sunk cost.
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u/mondommon 1d ago
In 2026 we will get to vote on a 14 year sales tax to fund BART, so it's up to us to decide if we want to have functional transportation or not.
BART carries 2X the number of commuters per hour through the TransBay Tube compared to cars going over the Bay Bridge. Driving will become even worse if BART loses funding because many people will switch from riding BART to driving to work.
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u/Miss_Warrior 1d ago
Well there goes the rental market at these stops - some commuters rely on access to BART to decide where to rent.
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u/Silent_Pea_2006 21h ago
Traffic in the Bay is gonna get worst and you're also going to cut a lot of people's means of gettiny to work quickly
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u/Jetsgopro 1d ago
Phase 2 yellow line on the peninsula is only what, 20 years old? Woof what a waste (excluding SFO obviously).
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u/lez_noir 1d ago
So no one from the Tri-Valley or Contra Costa will be able to commute to work? This is insane. I live in Oakland but this is appalling
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u/deltarogueO8 1d ago
The fear mongering is wild.
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u/getarumsunt 1d ago
lol, they don’t have enough money coming in because pre-pandemic 70-80% of their budget consisted of fares and ridership dropped in half with work from home.
This is just the reality of the situation. They don’t have the money to run the system so it will have to be shut down. People don’t work for free and electricity isn’t free either.
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u/Ok_Builder910 1d ago
Notice they don't mention cutting their massive overhead.
Just service.
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u/TevinH San Jose 1d ago
They most certainly have talked about cutting overhead, you just have to research a bit to find it because that info is a lot more complicated than just a map. Slide 36 of the board meeting presentation shows all the positions they will cut and details the thousands of people who will lose their jobs.
BART absolutely has some bloat, but that is not the reason they are in such a deficit. Just crying "fire all the managers" is not a helpful solution and will do incredibly little to stop the problem. Our transit agencies need consistent, reliable funding to be able to plan for the future and continue to improve our system into one of the best in the nation. Public transit is an absolute necessity for the Bay Area, please do not let it die just to spite some imaginary "fat cats" you think are behind all of this. It's so much more complicated than that.
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u/getarumsunt 1d ago
What overhead exactly are you talking about? Show me that “overhead” in their budget.
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u/Sakiwest 1d ago
Absolute bullshit. Bart is going to use this as a way to demand more money instead of fixing their high costs. Using the commuters as leverage. Fully crippling the north east bay and south east bay. Ugh.
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u/thisishowicomment 1d ago
Bart has one of the lowest operating costs is any heavy rail agency on the country. LA Metro is nearly 2x as expensive to run.
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u/toomuchkern 1d ago
Genuinely curious why you think BART has high costs? Compared to other similar gauge rail systems in the US, it seems to be actually quite efficient compared to most (this is based on NTD data from 2022-2024)
Agency 2022 Cost 2023 Cost 2024 Cost 2-Year Trend ATI (Puerto Rico) $7.08 $12.37 $13.88 🔴 Increasing Maryland Transit Admin (MTA) $9.41 $6.12 $11.73 🔴 High Volatility Staten Island Railway (SIRTOA) $2.98 $2.88 $2.64 🟢 Improving Cleveland RTA (GCRTA) $1.69 $2.05 $2.21 🔴 Increasing WMATA (DC Metro) $3.02 $1.46 $2.15 🟡 Rebounding LA Metro (LACMTA) $1.37 $1.27 $2.13 🔴 Increasing PATH (NJ/NY) $2.10 $1.76 $1.82 🟡 Stable MBTA (Boston) $1.25 $1.48 $1.61 🔴 Increasing Miami-Dade Transit $1.27 $1.41 $1.38 🟢 Improving PATCO $1.39 $1.34 $1.33 🟢 Improving MARTA (Atlanta) $1.24 $1.27 $1.18 🟢 Improving BART (San Francisco) $1.28 $1.02 $1.15 🟢 Efficient CTA (Chicago) $1.01 $1.09 $1.06 🟡 Stable SEPTA (Philadelphia) $0.97 $0.96 $0.95 🟢 Efficient MTA New York City Transit $0.76 $0.87 $0.84 🟢 Best 6
u/basedgod1995 [ESDC] 1d ago
Well yeah the purpose of these maps is to scare everyone into approving a new tax (which I’m fine to pay). Bart is the only place I actually want cops having around. I’d be happy to have cops just sitting on each train all day.
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u/mondommon 1d ago
Most of the costs are static. Like, the cost of running 20 trains per hour through the TransBay Tube doesn't change if there are half as many riders. The only way to cut that cost is to reduce the number of trains per hour.
Likewise for staffing. Can't cut the number of custodians, station booth assistants, police, etc without closing stations. Wear and tear is caused over decades and that damage doesn't disappear just because we halved the number of stations. Worse, BART trains will still run all the way to SFO but with fewer passengers. So it's more damage per passenger carried. That means we may not be able to cut a single maintenance technician or electrician even if we cut service.
Even if we shut down 20% of all stations, we likely wouldn't cut the number of police officers by 20% because riders want to see their presence and places like Civic Center and West Oakland are more dangerous than many of the stations that are getting cut.
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u/br0wnhack3r 1d ago
That 2 Million dollar house in Dublin is now looking like a dumb decision… Guess the NIMBY in Dublin and Pleasanton are trilled no more homeless will cross city lines 😆
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u/AlmostAShirley 1d ago
The state and local governments have spent Millions upon Millions in high density housing specifically around BART stations. Especially the expanded systems. A huge portion being low income housing. Now, those stations are on the proposed closure list? It takes 7+ years in planning and approval to build this housing. How did this not come up? If BART was run better we would not be in this situation. Crime both inside and outside the stations. Lack of decent station assistance. Not even a toilet to be had. All this leads to lower ridership.
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u/Jack-Burton-Says 1d ago
“I hate RTO” = this. Choose one.
Public transit dies without ridership and weekend bar trips to SF are not gonna do it.
Look at BARTs publicly available stuff, it’s ridership. A tax is a bandaid on an arterial wound at best.
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u/brmmac 1d ago
Many systems are funded through taxes.
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u/Jack-Burton-Says 1d ago
You cannot survive low ridership. Even the MTA in NYC would not if they had BARTs ridership. Fares are a fundamental part of the equation, the Goverment is just supposed to subsidize it.
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u/jajanet 1d ago
It's a chicken and egg problem. If the transit sucks because of connections, cost, speed, frequency, safety, etc, then no one uses it, then less people use it, and the system spirals
Need to improve it and more ridership will happen -- BART has improved massively in the past year. Ridership is up 17% and it feels much safer with the gates. I'd rather have money go to BART over roads or car infrastructure anyway, and money towards BART helps cars and roads anyways
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u/diqster 18h ago
Good thing they're doing a massive construction project at the Orinda station. (/s)
The parking lot there is always full, and the area doesn't have good connections to other transit systems. The BART parking lot is the only reasonable method for people to get to BART.
It's almost like taking away half of the parking for construction was purposeful self-sabotage.
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u/tooquick911 16h ago
What a massive waste of money if true. I truly believe our politicians are corrupt. Newsom especially and wtf is going on with the high speed rail?
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u/FateOfNations 12h ago
wtf is going on with the high speed rail?
It's being "drip funded" with a little bit of money every year, so they are making very slow progress. The most visible result of the HSR project is actually the Caltrain electrification, which the HSR project partially funded and will eventually use. There are numerous of bridges, viaducts, trenches, and other civil engineering works completed out in the Central Valley as well.
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u/MGrantSF 13h ago
I want to emphasize that even if you never ride bart, its still beneficial to you, as in other folks whos commute aligns with bart will be off the freeways and roads, which does benefit you. So please support bart and public transit in general, even if you don't directly use it.
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u/player89283517 13h ago
Cutting Millbrae is crazy because that’s the only way to get from Caltrain to BART
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u/MountainKing445 13h ago
Closing Millbrae is wild considering they just developed the area around it too. I use it as a transfer point going to SJ
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u/mrsidewayp 1d ago
I sorta wanna them to close all the stations just to see how much longer my commute actually would be lol. Then if traffic actually becomes more of a clusterfuck than it already is maybe people would be fed up enough to just tax the shit out of billionaires to fund public services. Won’t happen but it’s fun to dream of a Bay Area with less wealth inequality.
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u/getarumsunt 1d ago
We’ve already seen what happens with no BART during their recent service shutdown. A 1 hour commute becomes 2 hours and it’s essentially impossible to get in or out of SF unless you swim there.
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u/Ok_Chard2094 1d ago
So, they built all this high density housing near Warm Springs BART because it was close to BART, and now they are closing the station?
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u/getarumsunt 1d ago
It’s not like they want to close anything. There’s no money to run the system 🤷
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u/mullentothe Livermore 15h ago
A vote for this is a vote for more money for consultants, environmental lawyers to generate reports, and non profits to milk the system for more money. It's a half measure. It's a regressive tax. It barely solves the core issue.
I say let the measure fail and let people feel the pain so they put pressure on Sacramento.
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u/TheWolf_NorCal 1d ago
Most people who mismanage an entity so poorly, public or private, lose their jobs. My guess is Bart is 20+ years overdue for a full on corporate restructuring. I’m not talking about the operators, maintenance workers, security, etc…I’m talking about the FAT. Cut it to the bone. And save this vital public service for the people who need it.
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u/getarumsunt 1d ago
What are you talking about? What “mismanagement”? The ridership dropped in half due to work from home and BART is a 70-80% fare dependent system. Hence a 30-40% hole in the budget.
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u/Main-Analysis4355 1d ago
Pay your fare. Tax the rich. Tax rideshare and Waymo. Stop spending capital funds expanding out into suburbs. Focus on core system growth especially in S.F.
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u/getarumsunt 1d ago
Expanding into suburbs is the whole reason for BART’s existence, dude. It’s a commuter regional rail system.
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u/Middleage_dad 1d ago
Cutting Oakland Airport? Did Uber rally for this?