BART’s governing board on Thursday rejected the idea of raising the system’s base fare even as the system faces a $25 million to $35 million deficit because of a recent loss of weekend and off-peak riders.
“We can’t keep spending like drunken sailors; there is a day of reckoning that is going to face this district,” board member Joel Keller warned his colleagues as they mulled over what to do about the crisis. “We have to begin looking at ways of trimming costs and adding revenue.”
A major part of the problem is that the growing use of ride-hailing companies such as Lyft and Uber has led to a dramatic drop in BART ridership to the Oakland and San Francisco airports. Rush-hour ridership has not dropped, but off-peak use has been dropping of late.
Keller told the board everything should be on the table to deal with the crisis – even the base fare hike.
But board members quickly rejected raising $4 million annually through a 25-cent increase in the base fare starting next year, which would have raised it to $2.25. They also rejected cutting the current 6 percent discount for commuters who pay in bulk for rides, which would have saved another $4 million.
The board did agree to study a cut in the senior discount rate from 62 percent to 50 percent and to consider a 50 cent paper ticket fee to encourage more use of Clipper cards. Those would raise only $10 million, however, less than half the projected budget gap.
Board member Rebecca Saltzman said she is confident BART will find ways to raise fees for parking or take other measures to either boost ridership or cut costs.
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“We have this budget gap because this decrease in ridership and other decreases in revenues,” she said. “But we have a plan and a way forward. We have a lot of options on the table, and we’re considering how to deal with that.”
