Both Beege and I have been writing about this problem for a few years. In my case, I think my first post about problems with the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train system was back in 2018. But post-pandemic the problem really went into overdrive.
Prior to the pandemic about 70% of the funding for the transit system came from tickets. That was actually higher than in most large cities in the US but it meant that when ridership collapsed during the pandemic, the money to operate all the equipment just vanished overnight. And unfortunately for San Francisco, ridership has never returned to anything close to pre-pandemic levels. Too many people simply stopped going into the office and worked from home instead. And that put the transit system in a serious financial problem.
For the first couple of years the city was able to rely on federal emergency funding connected to the pandemic but as that expired they were forced to go to the state and beg for money. And in 2023 they got some state funds to fill in the gap but now that California is facing big budget gaps the money for public transit is likely to be cut.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is poised to cut $1.5 billion in funding for public transit from a state greenhouse gas emissions program, a move that could cripple agencies already devastated by COVID.
The funds at issue come from California’s Cap-and-Invest plan, which collects fees from oil and fossil fuel companies and distributes them among projects and agencies that reduce pollution. Some of that money goes toward transit infrastructure, and over the past two years Newsom has also dedicated a portion toward basic service…
State Sen. Scott Wiener, a longtime steward of public transportation, fervently objected to what he sees as the gutting of an emergency bailout. Wiener had pushed Newsom and his legislator colleagues to commit money in 2023 so that bus and rail agencies could keep running a reasonable amount of service. He’s worried those funds will evaporate in the next budget.
Here are the cuts State Sen. Wiener sees coming as of now:
The Governor’s proposed sweep of $1.5B from cap & trade funds would cut emergency transit funding for operations & capital. For example: Muni: $200M cut BART: $290M cut LA Metro: $250M cut These cuts create a risk of service cuts.🧵
— Senator Scott Wiener (@scottwiener.bsky.social) May 22, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Why is this a problem? Well, as I described here, there were already cuts made to the number of trains and cars in service back in 2023 when the funding problems became critical. And that means people are already unhappy with the service and crowding on the trains:
On a recent Tuesday, The Standard witnessed passengers jostling for slivers of space during the morning rush hour. Bodies were crammed uncomfortably close together. Cyclists got the stink eye from other riders for taking up extra space…
While the packed platforms and trains on certain days might make it feel like the Before Times, BART hasn’t fully recovered; ridership totals are paltry compared with before the pandemic. In 2019, average ridership for all weekdays was 400,000, according to BART data. Due to the drop in ridership, the transit system reduced the number of train cars in 2023. That means it can be a tight fit for the unlucky passengers who have no choice but to commute to the office.
So we’re not waiting for a squeeze on existing passengers, that’s already happening. And on top of that there are recent signs that the system is struggling in other ways. As Beege covered here, the entire system went down earlier this month. And then on Tuesday of this week, this happened.
NEW:
A witness captured a video of today’s BART explosion and fire.
“What the f– just happened?!”
By @annievain and @DominicFracassa https://t.co/VbfCpOYmR0 pic.twitter.com/nyVNOjjd0f
— Demian Bulwa (@demianbulwa) May 21, 2025
The SF Chronicle describes the problem.
An electrical fire that exploded at the San Leandro BART Station on Tuesday marked the rail system’s second meltdown in a span of two weeks, and triggered a moment of soul-searching.
Both incidents led to major service disruptions that began early in the morning and upended commutes for hours…
Myat San, chief infrastructure delivery officer, delivered the most detailed report to date on Tuesday’s fire, which he ascribed to “an electrical fault” on BART’s decades-old legacy power system near San Leandro Station. Electrical faults are not uncommon, San said. But in this case, the track’s protective circuit breakers failed to immediately detect the issue. As a result, the fault erupted in flames and electrical flashes that lit the dark sky…
Director Liz Ames feared that riders would lose confidence in BART. Wright reminded his colleagues of the stakes. “We’re facing an existential financial deficit,” he said. “We cannot afford to have a trust deficit.”
There are well-understood ways to manage old equipment. You maintain it carefully and check on it frequently or you replace it. Both of those options cost money the system probably will not have in the near term.
To sum up, the system has already faced cuts making remaining riders somewhat uncomfortable on some days. Now there are more cuts coming and signs the system itself is aging and needs repair. It’s hard to see how the city can avoid either more cuts or more failures in the near future, but either one would make riding the system unpleasant and encourage more riders to find alternatives.
And so you begin to see how this becomes a negative spiral. Less money means less service means less riders. Rinse and repeat. And at some point all of this plays into the larger negative spiral known as the doom loop where having less transit service means more businesses closing shop downtown and less money in city taxes. That could take years to play out but one of the critical moments may happen over the next month as California works out its state budget.
