Thanks to Covid, BART’s future in greater peril

HotAir’s John Sexton discusses pandemic-exacerbated declines in Bay Area Rapid Transit ridership. Since BART’s consistent funding requires residents commuting to the bygone physical office, Sexton wonders if the rail system will resort to mass layoffs and regular closures, which could spell “demise” for BART.

Declining ridership isn’t just a problem for the rail system of the distant future. It’s also a huge problem for systems that already exist and none has been hit quite as bad as BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system which connects the Bay Area. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported today, BART was once the pride of US rail system because it generated more money from fares than any similar system in the US. BART still didn’t break even but in 2019 72% of its funding came from fares which is a lot better than similar systems in New York or Boston for which ridership covers only about half of the cost to operate the trains.

BART ridership was in decline even before the pandemic but since then it has truly dropped off a cliff. Here’s a chart showing pre-and post-pandemic “exits” at downtown stations. These are people who used to ride the trains to work.

The immediate financial crisis was forestalled by some pandemic funding but that is going to run out in less than two years. By that point, the system is either going to need hundreds of millions per year in state funding or a major cutback in service. The cutbacks required would be so severe that they would likely put the remaining ridership into a tailspin.

This article originally appeared in HotAir. Read the whole thing here.

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