This week, MTC and BART start planning to address transit fiscal cliff

At this week’s MTC Programming and Allocations Committee meeting on Wednesday morning and BART board meeting on Thursday morning, the Bay Area’s regional planning organization and largest regional transit agency are starting to grapple with the specifics of the impending financial crisis when federal Covid relief funding runs out as transit ridership has been returning gradually. 

Last summer, the MTC approved a Transformation Action Plan to recover public transit from the impacts of Covid; the TAP included MTC taking the lead on a coordinated approach to funding.  Last month, the MTC outlined a general strategy to pursue fiscal bridge funding from the state, while working in a longer time frame on a regional funding measure. The work is now beginning in earnest.

Analysis by MTC and agency staff shows that Bay Area’s operators face an operating shortfall over $2B over the next 5 fiscal years, with BART, Golden Gate, Caltrain, WETA and SFMTA facing the steepest shortfalls.

BART - cutting service leads to downward spiral

To get a handle on the challenge, MTC is asking agencies to report on their financial status by December, with multiple scenarios,  including an assessment of how much service each agency can run at specified revenue levels.. 

BART is bringing an initial assessment to its board on Thursday. BART’s pessimistic scenario has ridership stabilizing at 60% of pre-pandemic levels and the optimistic scenario has ridership stabilizing at 80% of the pre-Covid levels.

In any of the scenarios, BART’s analysis finds that cost savings are not proportional to service cuts. Unless ridership recovers to 80% of pre-pandemic levels, BART would need to cut service by 65% to 85% to achieve budget savings in the 20-40% range.  Such steep service cuts would depress ridership and revenue even further, which could lead to a downward spiral requiring more cuts that would further depress ridership.

Recovery strategies - a state fiscal bridge, and a longer-term revenue measure.

Using information from the transit agencies, MTC plans to seek multiple years of fiscal bridge funding from the state, supported by a coalition of transit agencies. The state revenue would be focused on operating funding to maintain service levels and funding improvements aimed at increasing ridership, such as funding for integrated fares, wayfinding and transit priority improvements called for in the region’s Transformation Action Plan. MTC plans to bring the plans for state budget advocacy to its committees in January, 2023. 

In the longer term (2026 or 2028), MTC and BART are considering options for regional funding measures. Any revenue measure would likely require authorizing legislation.  

 There are several possible options:

  • A 9-county measure, presumably led by MTC

  • A 5-county measure for the counties that BART serves

  • A 3-county measure for the BART district

(While BART already has legal authority to assess a sales tax in the three counties covered by the BART board, Alameda County is currently at its sales tax limit so additional authority would be needed to raise the limit or to authorize a different revenue mechanism).


We believe it is good and important that MTC is working on a strategy to rescue and recover the region’s transit system as a whole, rather than accepting a situation where each agency and part of the region grapples separately with the risks to transit service. And it is good and important that MTC sees funding for the strategies for seamless transit in the transformation action plan core to regrowing ridership in a transit system that addresses the region’s goals for mobility, equity and climate.  

If you have time, please make a public comment (1–2 minutes) over Zoom when the item comes up on October 12th. It will likely be sometime between 10am and Noon

 

Suggested public comment talking points (you will have up to two minutes):

  • Hi, my name is ______. I live in ____________, and I use [x transit agencies /or my members use x transit agencies] to [insert activities or ways in which transit supports daily life].

  • We are happy to see the topic of transit funding on the agenda today and grateful to staff and the committee for addressing transit’s fiscal crisis. Transit agencies are projecting running short of funds as early as 2024.  [Cite stat from specific transit agency if relevant]. 

  • Transit is not only the backbone to our region’s infrastructure, but [insert personal reasoning or value: a pivotal solution to addressing the warming climate and greenhouse gas emission reduction / an equity strategy to make the Bay Area more affordable / a key to reducing congestion on our streets and our reliance on cars.]

  • I/We strongly support MTC advocating for state operations funding as a “fiscal bridge” to a future year ballot measure, in cooperation with transit agencies across the state.

  • With many uncertainties facing us in the next several years, we must pursue multiple strategies in parallel to fund transit. MTC must make it a priority to introduce enabling state legislation in 2023 for a subsequent regional funding measure. It is imperative that as transit agencies approach financial collapse when their federal pandemic funding has been consumed, we have multiple options to keep service on the streets. Abandonment of necessary transit services is not an option.

  • MTC has discussed enabling legislation for over a year now, and it’s time for action.  It may take an extended period to develop the necessary statewide legislative support to get a bill passed and we need to start with an effort in 2023 to build a broad coalition in Sacramento.

  • Thank you again for your recognition of the urgent need to save Bay Area transit.

Please reach out with questions and thank you for your advocacy!

Also, you are welcome to join an upcoming meeting of the Voices for Public Transportation Coalition on Thursday, October 13 at 5:00 PM where we will be discussing the current transit crisis and what you can do about it!

Adina Levin