☆ BART director: I'm hopeful about latest scheduling, train length changes—but “still more work to do”
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Second-term board member Debora Allen breaks down the transit agency's latest steps to boost ridership, reduce costs, and keep skeptical State legislators from giving up entirely on BART's $300 mil/year deficit “hole.” Allen also invites common-sense budget-minded folks to engage with BART leaders in a community budget workshop this October. An Opp Now exclusive.
Opportunity Now: The response to BART's recently-announced initiatives to increase ridership has been mostly positive. Most folks are feeling optimistic that the agency's shaking things up, trying new things.
Debora Allen: And it's about time. With a $1 billion/year operating budget and incurring a $300 million/year operating deficit, it's really the board's fiduciary obligation to look into how to provide as much service as possible while reducing costs. We have to become more efficient, or we won't survive.
I've been asking BART for a very long time to conduct a deep analysis of where can we find the most ridership in the most cost-efficient way. So the new BART schedule is a lot more complicated than “run more service, use shorter trains.” This is the first time BART management has provided us a hard, deep look at where ridership is: regarding times of day, days in the week, and locations.
BART has enacted several sweeping changes—first to train scheduling. I would have preferred we not expand night (especially late night) and weekend service the way we did. What we should have done instead is expand where we carry the most passengers, so that we don't increase our deficit by becoming more cost-inefficient. However, this was a needed compromise with other directors on BART's Board of Directors.
ON: What happens if running frequenter trains in the evenings and weekends isn't all that profitable?
DA: BART only has the opportunity to change its train schedule every six months. This is because of our labor agreements. Twice a year, workers bid on their schedules for the upcoming six months, and then we make changes accordingly. So in six months, we'll assess the outcomes of this reimagined train schedule; ideally, night and weekend ridership will have expanded—but maybe not.
Overall, there's still more work to do. I represent the Yellow Line, which terminates in Antioch and runs through Contra Costa to MacArthur station in Oakland. When BART finally did the analysis I've been requesting, they found (unsurprisingly) that a larger number of riders per train board the Yellow Line than most other areas in the system. And yet, it was running 20-minute headways (meaning that trains are 20 minutes apart), whereas other areas had 10-15 minute headways but carry half as many passengers or less.
What we should be doing is this: Find the efficiencies, and expand service where many riders are already using BART. And also look where we're not getting as much ridership (and maybe don't have the potential to expand ridership), and discern how to increase cost-efficiency there.
ON: And then BART's also shortening trains.
DA: Yes. If we shorten the number of cars on an underutilized train from, for instance, eight to six cars, we save money and riders will easily condense into less trains. We're already assessing this change and learning things like “six-car trains don't work on X line at Y time.” Unlike train schedules, train lengths can be changed as we go (i.e., we don't have to wait six months).
ON: Many are wondering if BART is fundamentally broken—if we should question why it's having such a hard time being cost-effective post- (and even before) Covid. Do BART's ridership vs. budget numbers worry you?
DA: Transit agencies across America are struggling after the pandemic to bring ridership back. Much of this has to do with the “new normal” of where people work. For BART, our ridership was always very commute-centric. It was heavily dependent on commuters going to and from Oakland and SF during the week. However, that work pattern has been completely disrupted since Covid, more so in the San Francisco Bay Area than in other metropolitan areas. So it makes sense that BART is struggling to recover more than transit agencies in other cities that are lately seeing more increased in-person commuting.
What's hopeful for BART, financially, is that the State Legislature granted new funding for us in their latest budget. Of course, it's not enough to fill BART's huge deficit, but it's over $100 million/year, which is helpful. The problem is that since 2020, $300 million/year in deficit has been incurring, but it was being filled by Covid relief funds (three in total) from the federal government. So nobody paid much attention. Then, the money inevitably ran out, and BART's unsustainable budget has finally become a topic of conversation.
We can't just fill a $300 million hole each year, so we must stabilize spending with revenue.
ON: Besides the latest initiative to do just that, what else are BART personnel proposing?
DA: There was a proposal to raise bridge tolls. It's been suspended for now, but it'll come back in January; and I suspect that it might have more success then, given what I see in BART management (they're looking for narratives for ways to cut spending, or at least perceived spending).
More will come out of this in October. Specifically, BART will hold a budget workshop on October 26th. I'd love to see a big crowd of people who know budgets come to the table and participate in this workshop. BART is trying to figure out ways to slim down the budget, so they can go back to the legislature and prove their “self-help” capabilities (that'll be the new buzzword, take it from me). After all, legislators have been asking the obvious: “Why should we hand you $200 million more each year, if we're not seeing BART make any attempt to cut spending?”
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