BART’s preliminary budget for the coming fiscal year projects a 7 percent increase in ridership but remains heavily supported by federal relief funding, the transit agency’s budget officials said Thursday.
The preliminary budget projects an increase of $48 million in operating revenue over the $915 million in the agency’s adopted budget for fiscal year 2021, which spans from July 2020 to this June.
That increase is buoyed mostly by the agency using $349 million in emergency relief funding from the federal government, $38 million more than BART utilized in fiscal year 2021.
The 7 percent ridership increase would amount to an $11 million increase in revenue for the agency, from $148 million in fiscal year 2021 to $159 million in fiscal year 2022.
The preliminary budget also includes a $31 million shortfall, mostly due to the agency’s current plan to re-expand service in September by offering more frequent trips and later service. That plan is expected to cost the agency $43 million over the cost of BART’s current service schedule.
Christopher Simi, BART’s budget director, said the agency expects to cover the $31 million deficit by the time BART’s Board of Directors approves the budget in June, using a combination of reduced operating costs from the agency’s incentivized early retirement program and additional federal relief funding.
“Federal funding has been critical and has allowed us to maintain services during this time and get through our ridership trough,” Simi said to the BART Board of Directors Thursday. “We also know it won’t last.”
BART’s ridership has hovered around 10 percent of pre-pandemic levels since the COVID-19 pandemic began last year, a drop that opened a chasm in the agency’s financial planning.
Ridership in recent weeks has begun to creep up for the first time since then, getting closer to 15 percent of pre-pandemic baseline levels.
BART officials expect late summer to be an inflection point, when widespread vaccination against the coronavirus will begin pushing ridership higher until March 2022, when it is projected to stabilize around 50 percent of pre-pandemic levels.
“We’re assuming here that the pace of recovery improves beginning in September, when we expect many schools and workplaces to have more folks begin to be on site again,” BART Financial Planning Director Michael Eiseman said.
Board Director Janice Li framed the planned increase in service, and its impact on financial planning, as BART betting on itself that riders will want to return to public transit after more than a year away.
BART officials are currently examining incentives like group fare rates as one tool to help boost ridership in the months ahead, something Li and Board Director Rebecca Saltzman both targeted as crucial to the agency remaining solvent in the years ahead when the federal pandemic relief funding has dried up.
Saltzman also suggested the agency hold off on introducing those incentives until service actually increases in September.
“As much as I want people to return to BART right now, I think fare incentives will get a lot of press coverage and will bring a lot of people to BART who either didn’t used to ride regularly or haven’t ridden in a long time,” she said. “And if they come back and see these 30-minute headways or they go out to dinner and then they realize they’re stuck because BART’s not running and it’s 9:30 (p.m.), we’re not going to get those people back.”
By fiscal year 2025, BART budget officials said the agency is on track to accrue as much as $1 billion in cumulative deficits before federal relief funding is accounted for.
Earlier this year, Eiseman noted that BART is not on track to return to even 80 percent of its pre-pandemic ridership until the end of the decade, kneecapping the agency’s main revenue source for the foreseeable future.
“We need to get back to 350,000 riders to get a balanced budget,” Board Chair Mark Foley said, referencing BART’s daily average ridership pre-pandemic. “Yesterday, we were at 58,000 … So this is good planning, this is good positioning, but we need to be sure we’re keeping our eye on those milestones down the road and be able to be nimble.”
10 comments
so the homeless will start paying? LOL
poop for everyone… 🙁
BART is nasty and dirty. It’s primary function is to shuttle homeless people to expensive neighborhoods where they can panhandle and loiter.
Looks like BART is still clueless about what riders what/need.
To many “Tail-Winds”, way to optimistic … A lot of in office Jobs are not coming back, business closures in SF, limited seating and high prices for A’s and Giants, perception that it’s not Safe, Homeless … all this adds up to a financial loss … the Feds will not keep bailing out BART … expect a Bond Measure to support the bloated BART Bureaucracy … BART needs to take bold measures to get their Financial House in order, unfortunately BART Leadership does not have the courage or will to take the difficult steps
let them drown
they have not run efficiently for over 30 years
why are WE paying for their lack of ethics and bad business model
i wonder why
Or BART needs start pay cuts and layoffs to assist in balancing the budget…
BART should have instituted layoffs, furloughs and across-the-board pay cuts to make ends meet, instead of using bond measure money that was supposed to pay for actual system improvements. After a year, I suspect many people have gotten used to NOT riding BART. It may take a while for them to acclimate to sexual harassment, the homeless, panhandlers and thieves, not to mention the occasional assault.
My opinion: BART is like a cut-rate cruise ship, without the bar or buffet. BTW- What is the full cost (fares plus all taxes) for a round trip from Concord to SF? Could someone from BART give us an honest answer?
Between January 2020 and March 2021, the SF commercial RE vacancy rate increased from 4% to almost 20%. A large number of companies locked into leases are subletting unused office space, which increases the total square footage of available office space even more. Some of the biggest tech companies in SF have told their employees they can work from home indefinitely.
The SF residential vacancy rate is up to 11% and rents are down almost 25%.
SF is losing both commuters and residents.
So, how in the hell does BART think they can continue like they are?
Now is not the time to entice riders with a filthy, crime-ridden system filled with vagrants and drug addicts.
I doubt BART “leadership” will face reality.
‘Why Tokyo’s Privately Owned Rail Systems Work So Well
Large cities with cash-strapped transit agencies would do well to study Japan’s rail history’
https://tinyurl.com/e3t77v69
you see here is the problem
I doubt BART “leadership” will face reality.
that comment not trying to single out but an observation is needed
bart so called leadership is a bunch of tools that cant make it in politics so they highjacked bart board and are draining every dime from tax payers
can you rid them nope
just like the dimwitts who said yeah instead of a mayor we elect and can vote out
lets give our rights and access of tax dollars and decisions of our city
to group of 5 people
who we can never get rid of
unless they agree to rid themselves
councils and boards and committees are just a bunch of people who collaborate to make themselves rich off of us
just like dem politicians
but they lack deniability and the power to screw over their own friends
stop giving our lives to people who steal from us
unless you like that sort of thing …..
i am sure there is a website you can go to
so you can be abused and give your money too
i would rather you do that than vote for us to be legally stolen from or to allow a transit system to hold us hostage every 3-4 years as they claim they are not safe …..but we can ride with the drug addicts and urin soaked seats anytime after we pay for a bus ride or parking and a raised fare
never mind the kids and bums jumping the stiles
pay or go to jail
if you work or have any collateral we can take from you
stop letting toads run our cities into the ground
and leave us broke and our children running for their lives
Comments are closed.