Amid looming $1 bil shortfall, BART board won't entertain service reductions

The Contra Costa News reports that BART's new two-year budget won't cut transit services despite consistently low ridership numbers. On the contrary, VTA is working to extend to Downtown SJ, a project that'll burn over $9 million while barely, if at all, improving traffic congestion.

As Bay Area Rapid Transit moves close to its $1 billion fiscal cliff in the coming years, its Board failed to consider what services would look like under a 10% cut.

The request came by Director Debora Allen who took issue that BART was seeing an 8% spending increase in operational cost while at the same time the agency was prepared to ask the state and public for more money. She sought to see if the Board was willing to look at what a 10% cut across the board cut would look like.

At the May 11 meeting, the board agreed to take a straw poll to see if there was support for a cuts analysis. The board essentially voted down the analysis proposed by Allen with a 3-6 vote.

Mark Foley, who represents Contra Costa County, voted against the exercise saying he actually wanted to increase services to win riders back—completely ignoring the presentation highlighting operational cost increases, budget projections and down ridership.

The outcome of that vote is 6 of the Board Members won’t even consider looking at cuts or service reductions even though within 5-years, BART is anticipated to have a $1 billion shortfall—instead, it will seek a bailout from the State or voters at some point in the future.

Ironically, on May 26, BART issued a statement on BART finances from Board President and GM saying it needed more funding to avoid service and staffing cuts.

This article originally appeared in the Contra Costa News. Read the whole thing here.

Image by Marco Verch Professional Photographer

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