Remind us why we’re spending $9 billion to expand a tanking public transit system

Just as SJ prepares to rip up downtown yet again for another brutally costly transportation system, the Wall Street Journal reports that BART, like many other U.S. transit systems, is basically going broke. Hold onto your wallet.

Several of the nation’s largest urban mass-transit systems are at a crossroads, with ridership still depressed three years into the pandemic and federal aid running out.

The ridership shortfall is forcing transit authorities to question their decades-old funding models for public buses, subways and trains, which are based on a combination of rider fares and public money. On average, fares provided about a third of the operating income for transit systems nationwide in 2019, according to the Federal Transit Administration.

In major cities such as New York and San Francisco, transit authorities have been leaning on emergency funding to plug budget holes and prop up operations. In all, Congress approved about $69 billion in three separate Covid-19 relief packages in 2020 and 2021.

But those funds are dwindling, leaving transit officials grappling with budget shortfalls and seeking new ways to fund existing service.

“The more you lose a ridership base, the more difficult it becomes to maintain a level of service that people are used to,” said P.S. Sriraj, director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois, Chicago. “It’s becoming a vicious cycle.”

In San Francisco, the Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, recorded 3.7 million trips in November—a little more than one-third of the ridership before Covid.

The decline is particularly acute among so-called “choice riders”, people who have access to a vehicle but choose to take mass transit, Mr. Sriraj said. This group includes office workers who tend to favor commuter rail over public buses, he added.

Read the whole thing (subscriber paywall) here:

Editors’ note:….and lest we forget, Mark Joffe from the Cato Institute writing in the Merc:

The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority recently increased the budget for its BART Silicon Valley Phase II extension to a staggering $9.3 billion.

That would be more than $1.5 billion for each mile of the six-mile project from the Berryessa station through downtown San Jose to Santa Clara. There are not enough greenhouse gas emission savings or rider convenience benefits to justify the cost.

Read Joffe’s whole op-ed here:

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