Bay Area riders may soon be asked to decide on a new sales tax that would bolster their signature rail system. The New York Times reports that Bay Area Rapid Transit, which once shuttled packed trains of commuters to and from San Francisco, is now carrying less than half of its pre-pandemic ridership and staring at a $400 million annual budget gap. The agency's board has floated an attention-grabbing backup plan for 2027, or what Berkeleyside frames as a "doomsday scenario," which would include not as many trains, increased fares (CBS notes they'd rise at least 30%), a 9pm shutdown instead of midnight, layoffs of roughly a quarter of its workers, and closure of 15 stations, mostly at the system's edges.
Whether those threats are a needed wake-up call or political theater is already being debated, with detractors calling the rhetoric a "scare tactic," per the Times. "This is about putting BART on life support," one of the transit system's board directors insisted last month. Critic Steve Glazer, a former Democratic state senator, pushes back on that, noting that salary cuts and renegotiated labor contracts should be on the table before tacking on a new tax. "Most of what BART has done has been token reductions and paper shuffling," Glazer says. "BART is like an out-of-shape runner who wants credit for tying their shoes."
BART officials now want a November ballot measure raising sales tax across five Bay Area counties. The Times walks through what's really driving the shortfall—including remote work, downtown San Francisco's sluggish recovery, and safety concerns—and what losing BART would mean for riders and entire neighborhoods. "It seems insane that a place as flush with cash as this town can't keep things like this that allow society to function," one commuter says.
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