BART officials have called for emergency local, state and federal funding support as the transit agency hemorrhages money and ridership due to fears of spreading the coronavirus.
BART Board President Lateefah Simon and General Manager Bob Powers have lobbied officials for emergency funding, arguing that the agency is facing a monthly loss of $37 million in fare revenue at current ridership
levels and an overall revenue loss of $55 million per month when accounting for a loss in economic activity.
Monday’s BART ridership was down 70 percent compared to an average Monday in February, while the agency’s preliminary data showed an 85 percent ridership drop on Tuesday.
“This is a financial crisis for BART,” Simon said. “This level of catastrophic revenue loss is not sustainable and threatens future service. We need reassurance from all levels of government that transit will not be left out.”
Agency officials have requested that funding subsidies for public transit systems be included in future stimulus bills as the federal government tries to keep the economy from collapsing. BART also plans to apply for a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to shore up its revenue losses.
The agency is also requesting a $55 million allocation from the state’s $500 million coronavirus response funding package and an operating subsidy from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
BART continues to run its standard service hours, with largely empty trains and station platforms, allowing riders to practice social distancing and refrain from potentially spreading coronavirus.
“As the backbone of transportation in the Bay Area, we will also play an essential role during the economic recovery process,” Powers said.
“Access to emergency funding is needed to keep the Bay Area moving once the region begins to recover.”
Make sure all riders have a ticket. Then ask for more money.
best post on this subject
What Bob said.
Yep! You can’t have it both ways. Poor BART management has made this situation 100 times worse. Ignoring the publics cries for safety, cleanliness, and fare jumpers are just a few of the issues. This board of directors is more concerned with social issues than doing what it takes to run an efficient and safe system. Time for taxpayers to put their foot down… No more bond measures/tax increases to make up for their poor management. This should be a wake up call to voters that if we really want to make a change a boycott of a few weeks would make a huge impact to get them off their social justices asses and work for the people that pay their salaries.
Bob hit the nail on the head.
Make sure ALL riders have a ticket!
Oh and quit buying new train cars that have less seats than the old train cars.
I refuse to pay more money for less service.
Yes, I do refer to an available seat as a level of service I expect.
Joe
AMEN to that. All the fare evading transients are still there. They won.
Did anyone not see this coming?
Gotta make it work with what ya got within your means, thats what the rest of us are doing, no help anywhere else just yourself.
Stove, exactly!!
Bart needs to man up and just accept the fact that people are following a stay in place orders.
Before receiving funds, the Fed’s should look at their books. Some one needs to find the hole in their pocket before trying to fill it. Maybe adjust the payroll and benefits to match the times.
Payroll and benefits to match the times? Lol, good one. I was an electronics tech for BART, I left them for better money, benefits, and work schedule somewhere else. I don’t know why people seem to think BART employees are so spoiled, but they most certainly are not. Otherwise I’d still be there.
So a janitor can make $200,000/yr (including O/T) and that’s not spoiled. Do they get a pension, full benefits, paid time off (sick/vacation/floaters/comp/etc/etc/etc), free rides and who knows what else? Maybe they are not as spoiled as they used to be, but compared with many private sector jobs, they are still spoiled. Most union workers are. Especially public sector.
burnbabyburn…
janitor hate? you sound jealous. where’s your proof? your data?
let me guess. you heard from a friend, that knew a person, who isnt real, that an imaginary janitor worked every possible shift during a stange hiring/budget fiasco, that was a hypothectical excercise to validate the need for upper managment raises.
this imaginary janitor had no family or friends and worked 20 hour days without breaks, 7 days a week, right !!?
is this just another chance to hate on unions? doing your masters bidding?
I think you’re mad at yourself and taking it out on others.
they don’t their jobs anyway. BART has not been dependable or safe for a long time. I hope they go under and I get to work from home forever. Talk about good for climate change. Not having to drive or ride BART rocks plus Starbucks is still open. Same old transients at BART have been there 20 years.
Thank you Bob Foo and burnbabyburn for the input. There is definitely something wrong with the money flow concerning BART. I read a few years ago that management was in excess of $300,000.00 plus benefits. Other city and county workers are also paid excessive salaries plus benifits.
Also it is common for government workers to retire early, then get another government job and this stacks up MORE retirement benefits. This is just one of many reasons why working class Concord is so expensive that people have to move farther out, thus creating longer commutes.
The problems are stacking up to critical effect. California is in ruins because of this greed. Billion dollar Bonds every election year??? Schools bankrupt??? BART employees and utility management need another raise???
My property taxes were raised More than 600 dollars in the last two years. Newsom has promised there is more to come. Foreigners are forgiven crimes, let out of prison to commit more crimes, they get free medical and college education, legal advice…while our native sons are refused help of any kind, even jobs. Then there are the drug addicts crapping in the streets , committing petty crimes for another dose…how much is enough???
That isn’t even all of it.
@BeenWatching
The BART janitor incident was extremely well publicized (i.e. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/BART-janitor-pay-270000-Powell-St-questions-10911932.php). Not sure how anyone in the Bay Area could have missed it as there were multiple headlines. People get pissed because they see unskilled labor like 49 BART janitors making $100K/yr (ibid).
I have a ton of respect for janitors, and personally I have no problem with BART janitors making $100K assuming they’re doing their job. With that said, I do have a much harder time justifying $200K+ even though I admit it’s a hard job. I have no respect of janitors (or anyone else) not doing their job and collecting that much.
Perhaps Bart shouldn’t have spent all their money on avocado toast. They should also try and pull themselves up from their boot straps.
I love your comment about avocado toast. What fries my niblets is all of the fare evaders and the fees for parking.
Deborah Allen wants to raise BART parking fees to $7.00 a day. I have a word for her. It is wrong that we can’t vote for board members no matter what district they’re in. Please vote her off along with that Alameda County Judge who said BART is not responsible for protecting uts patrons from mob style robberies in the station.
Piss off Bart
There’s nothing new here Bart is always asking for $ regardless of what’s going on.
Mel Brooks….. https://youtu.be/uTmfwklFM-M
Might as well line up at the trough with everybody else. Good time to take care of fixing any issues, reducing OT bloat, deep cleaning everything, and finding more ways to squeeze riders when they return.
BFF Out!
These directors have spent our tax money like drunken sailors since forever. Now they cry for more . Meanwhile millions of people are getting paid… nothing.
Talk to me when BART has furloughed employees. And, how much have BART Directors cut their salaries ?
So well said Anonymous! 👍
Lol BARF
beating down on us
Allowing us to deal with theft and scum
Grabbing tax money claiming safety concerns and doing nothing to make us safe
Picketing /striking
Charging for parking
Ask the unions for money we are done
Get what you sew BARF
as others have posted tighten your belts
We are done
How about restructuring wages since maybe the workforce will get smart and find that 20% of people can work from home and not need to commute to sf
More production and less fatigue from horrible Bart commute
only to find out your vehicle was vandalized in a paid lot
By the bum/druggie habitating in the unused elevator
Furloughs and cut backs
WE ARE DONE
Feeding the money pit of a supposed public service
that turned out to be a stick up scam
Shame on you and your management
For even asking or rather threatening
Regarding working from home, remember BART train operators don’t actually drive the trains. All they do is hold the doors open past the programmed time when needed. The central computer runs the train including operating the doors. Remember time when an operator stepped off a train for a moment in W.C, the doors closed and the train drove itself to Lafayette leaving the operator on the platform in W.C.
Mr Kirkwood, I am not sure where you got for your information but you are not correct. In almost every way.
I was an automatic train control technician for Bay Area Rapid Transit. I worked on the systems that told the trains where to go, where to stop, how fast to go, the systems that move the switches, the signals, etc. The BART train operator does not “hold the doors open.” As a matter of fact, the BART train operators job is actually to press a door closed button when it’s time to close the doors. As the train pulls into the station, it is receiving two signals from the train control system. One signal is in an inductive antenna that is crossed over every foot, and the train uses this signal to determine how far it is on the platform by counting how many times the phase has shifted in that signal. The other signal is a door open command which causes the train doors to open once the train has come to a stop. Once the doors are closed by the operator, the automatic train control system issues a speed command to the train and the train continues moving again. Central control has no way to manipulate things in the manner that you describe. So before you continue to spread nonsense, make sure you do some fact checking first because I am almost positive that you have never worked in automatic train control for a mass transit agency.
at Bob Foo.
I have no idea what you’re talking about…
sick burn tho.
Oh wow re read this
And Bart has the audacity to ask for fed money
After backing demorats and sanctuary and slandering potus
Lol go and sit with Amazon at your anti trump fire pit playing hacky sack
The tax banks and federal pilfering is done
BART needs a complete overhaul. They are so mismanaged and provide crappy service. The dirty trains, criminal activity and high parking fees keep many people from being able to use public transit. I don’t see any reason to provide BART with anymore public funds because I don’t think they provide the public with a vital service.
Agreed! BART is a mess. Another organization needs to take over.
No money; haven’t they realized there’s lots of people without jobs now? Tighten your belt and live within your budget and make decisions on how to cutback on expenditures. Just like us.
Maybe they will have time to clean up their trains, and have time to enforce laws, like no eating or drinking, no panhandling, and everyone has to have a ticket.
close it down and the airports and let us live life in our own communities, til this horror rides out.
For some reason I have no sympathy BART’s situation.
Pay cuts and layoffs first, just like everyone else. Exorbitant salaries and unchecked spending have come back to bite you!!!
Try reducing train schedules, BART should be dynamic enough to work through this, even if it means layoffs, COLA delays, Forgo bonuses … Oh not these Measures, it would be like touching the 3rd Rail … Sorry no sympathy for a dysfunctional run transit system
There goes another 3 billion. Will we ever learn?
Please cut their salary or pension first, just about everyone is hurting in this situation.
Less revenue, less salary, it is simple.
At least they are not likely to get laid off like many others…
They announced they are still running regular schedule. Time to run fewer trains and smaller trains. Maybe even close some lesser used stations.
Board members can pick up mops and brooms. Like I do when a mess needs cleaning. Like all of us do. Waiting for results!
I think some of the janitors actually make more than the board members.
They received millions in 2019 from us taxpayers. Why don’t they lay-off from the top to save money. What a joke.
HOW MANY $$$ MILLIONS DOES BARF LOSE EVERY YEAR DUE TO FARE EVADERS? WELL, HOW ABOUT YOU START COLLECTING FROM THEM?? YES I’M YELLING!!! thank you
I hear you Pat. Loud and Clear!
What other organization could flush over $20 million
per year down the toilet in loss turnstile revenue and
still cry poor. (That’s over $20 million x uncounted years).
A bunch of inept managers should have been booted
from their jobs a long time ago. If you have millions that
you are too lazy to collect, don’t come asking for more.
If ridership really is down 70%, how about cutting the number of running trains by 50% or reducing staff by 50%? This is how business works in the real world.
Cutting trains down would not allow for social distancing, Plus BART employees are paid regardless if they work or not, per their contract, so cutting back won’t help.
BART is seeking a “bailout”?
Hell no. BART should have been enforcing against fare evaders and should have been maintaining a fund reserve since its inception… instead, it’s spend, spend, spend.
Eff you BART!!
Just the excuse BART was looking for to hold out their hand.
Tighten your belt and make sure all riders have paid before even asking…then the answer can be NO…
This really is an opportune time for an overhaul. No focus groups, no town hall meeting, etc. etc. Simply bring in a crew who know how to run a railroad. BART is nothing more than an electric train; it’s not the space shuttle.
Three simple objectives:
1- Make it safe
2-Make it clean
3-Make sure all riders pay for a ticket.
Come on folks have a heart. These are good honest folks.
Shut it down and kick out the braindead board of directors. It’s well past time for private enterprise to take over this system and run it like a real business.
Yet they’ve done nothing to stop people from riding for free. Witnessed 2 people walk right through the gates and station agents turn their heads. They should work on that prior to receiving any funding!
What do people think is going to happen to all of the businesses that pay everyone’s salaries and put food on our tables? We’re just getting started, the people that are complicit in shutting down their businesses will be the first to go belly up when this “pandemic” is worse than ever in 3, 6, 12 months from now. If you think the government has the money or credit to bail us out of this and keep us all “safe” your sadly mistaken. The panic and hysteria is going to kill a lot more than the 3% of our population this virus would’ve wiped out.
When even janitors they are making $200,000 a year, how can this surprise anyone? More evidence of the ridiculous salaries that public employees make. I say let them go down in flames and then let it become a private entity
When even janitors…(WTF?) are janitors below you? are they lesser persons? Well american citizen, let me clue you in, you’re what is wrong with america and the world.
I am glad to not know you.
You’re a horrible person and you know it and that makes me happy.
I hope you get everything you deserve. Enjoy that reflection in the mirror.
BART has had enough bailouts from Taxpayers.
Hahaha…the same idiots who won’t release video footage of CRIMINALS captured by cameras we—aka “The Taxpayers”—pay for due to concerns of “racial insensitivity”, and who won’t do jack about the gate-jumpers, and who throw a cop under the bus who was DOING HIS JOB when some entitled moron was being a d*** to the cop after multiple times being asked to NOT EAT, you know, one of BART’s very own rules.
Want money? Make cuts to your irresponsible and completely unsustainable taxpayer-insured PENSIONS, or borrow some cash from your $275K/yr janitors who take multiple hour+ breaks in a closet.
Janitors are making $275K/yr now???
holy crap!!! < see what I did there? no you didn't.
being upset at managment and yourself is one thing, but leave the janitors alone already.
That would be funny if it wasn’t true. Just ask Liang Zhao Zhang.
Oh hell no. I laid of 55 people today. They get nothing. Some can’t even claim unemployment. ALL BART WORKERS ARE REQUIRED TO 60 DAYS NOTICE NEFORE A SCHEDULE CHANGE. Nobody’s riding Bart and even the schedule can’t be modified. They’re fully paid. They can’t even try to run less trains. Screw Bart. I hope Bart rots. I won’t vote for anyone or anything in their favor. And I’m a democrat.
Imagine, a TRAIN service
With its own Police Department
THAT NEVER RIDES THE TRAINS.
Just that alone…sympathy zero.
Sure – let’s fork even more money over for inflated salaries, lifetime medical benefits, & fat pensions to the rudest, most lazy group of union ‘workers’ government could ferment.
F*** BART.
They don’t “deserve” a damn thing. Any failures on their end are a direct result of their mismanagement. They have no idea how to improve efficiency.
NO MORE MONEY
NO SYMPATHY FOR WHAT BART HAS DONE making it a homeless hotel on wheels.
PAY EVADERS, THIEVES WHO ARE NOT PUNISHED, FILTHY TRAINS, HORRENDOUS PARKING FEES and INCREASE IN FARES to supplement the entitlement crowd.
Just like over taxing of gasoline and anything else the Dems, Libs, Nanny state and media cry babies deem to stick down the throat of law abiding and over taxed citizens.
WAKE UP and vote these fools out. RECALL NEWSOM and he only wants to feather his nest to run for President – God help us.
Just keep spending money that it is going out of style and more and more of us will leave California. Then how will you support your causes with illegals, entitlement crowd and criminals who never have paid into a system that gives them everything for free???
BART is the PG&E of transportation. Corruption and making the public pay the price for any down falls while they mismanage money and take home everything.
With ridership down 70%, I would say they have received a pretty substantial kick………
They need the money to pay the bloated extravagant BART employee salaries. After all, BARTs number 1 priority is to provide high paying jobs. Providing mass transportation is not BARTs priority. Just looking at what a daily disaster the BART system is says it all.
Time to be a janitor for BART.
🙂
Thanks for the info everyone.