Caption: Image via Seamless Bay Area, who live-skyed last week's hearing. Graphic made by UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies.
Last week, Senator Scott Wiener (D-SF) held a hearing of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee focused on the looming funding crisis facing California transit agencies. This week, Wiener and Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley) announced an effort to get $2 billion more in state funds to help fill operating deficits throughout the state included in next year's budget.
As Juan Matute explained on StreetSmart last week, the agencies that are most reliant on “farebox recovery” to fund their operations face massive deficits that have been filled by the state and federal government since the COVID-19 shutdowns in 2020.
As Matute explains, “(Agencies that) weren't as reliant on tax subsidies for operations, were also much more sensitive than some of these other agencies with lower farebox recoveries to changes in ridership affecting their bottom lines. This is what we're seeing ah with Caltrain, BART, Metrolink, and even San Francisco Muni.”
It’s no coincidence that three of those four agencies are in the Bay Area communities represented by Wiener and Arreguín. Muni, BART, AC Transit and Caltrain are facing an $800 million deficit in the budget year starting July 1, 2026 and the deficits continue into the future.
As Wiener and Arreguín see it, the Bay Area needs time to fix its long-term fiscal issues but the crisis is here now. This morning’s headlines included this piece in the San Francisco Examiner that declares that local subsidies won’t be enough to maintain Muni’s bus, rail, and trolley service at its current levels.
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie has stopped short of promising a ballot measure in 2026 that would help subsidize transit. L.A. Metro depends on ballot measures to keep fares low and service running and Lurie says he recognizes that a “multi-prong approach” will be needed to balance the ledgers for Bay Area agencies.
At last week’s meeting, speakers proposed various options for the state to contribute that $2 billion. These ranged from increasing the allocation from the state’s Cap-and-Trade program to flexing some funding currently allocated towards expanding the state’s electric vehicle infrastructure.
Bicycle and pedestrian safety advocates are making the case that since the state has lost its federal partner in expanding access to electric vehicles that the state needs to rethink its strategies for reducing carbon emissions. That means not just expanding bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, but also saving transit, they argue.
