The people running BART are economic illiterates. The higher the fares, the fewer the passengers. They already know the public is unwilling to give them more money. BARTis union controlled—getting to work means the unions need to be happy or they will have a strike for a day or two.
“The 6.2% increase is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. The surge continues a program of inflation-based increases the agency has imposed every two years since 2004.
The one-way cost for the shortest trips on the system, such as those between stops in downtown San Francisco and Oakland, will rise from $2.45 to $2.60. A moderate-length commute — from El Cerrito Plaza to San Francisco’s Civic Center station — will go up 35 cents to $5.70 each way. BART calculates that the average passenger fare will rise from about 30 cents to $5.
The latest hike is detailed in a federally required analysis of the equity impact on minority and low-income riders that the BART board of directors is slated to approve Thursday.”
Little by little, due to costs, dirty, disease and crime ridden trains are getting fewer commuters. With Bay Area and State government facing bankruptcy, BART will not be bailed out. It is time to sell it.
BART to Raise Fares Again as Deficit Looms
Dan Brekke, KQED, 5/21/25 https://www.kqed.org/news/12040951/bart-raise-fares-again-deficit-looms
BART is moving forward with the latest in a series of fare hikes designed to keep up with inflation as it faces a future of major deficits and potential service cuts.
The 6.2% increase is scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. The surge continues a program of inflation-based increases the agency has imposed every two years since 2004.
The one-way cost for the shortest trips on the system, such as those between stops in downtown San Francisco and Oakland, will rise from $2.45 to $2.60. A moderate-length commute — from El Cerrito Plaza to San Francisco’s Civic Center station — will go up 35 cents to $5.70 each way. BART calculates that the average passenger fare will rise from about 30 cents to $5.
The latest hike is detailed in a federally required analysis of the equity impact on minority and low-income riders that the BART board of directors is slated to approve Thursday.
The 106-page report, which includes dozens of pages of largely critical comments from people surveyed about the proposed increase earlier this year, concludes that higher fares will have no disparate impact on BART’s substantial number of customers who are people of color or who have lower incomes.
Survey respondents who supported the higher fares said they understand the need, as the agency faces a budget crisis that could lead to service cuts as soon as mid-2026.
“Look, no one wants to have to pay more for things,” one of those surveyed wrote. “But I’d rather BART double fares than cut service. BART is essential to my ability to live, work, and have fun in the Bay Area.”
But those saying they were willing to pay more were outnumbered about two to one by people saying the agency’s fares are high enough.
“The more you increase the prices, the less likely people will want to even ride the BART, which will lower your revenue,” one commenter wrote. “… Y’all are just making Bart less and less accessible at this point.”
Because the BART board elected to phase in the previous inflation-related increase over the past two years, the next hike will mark the third straight year fares have gone up for the first time in the agency’s history.
BART offers a 50% discount for lower-income riders through the regional Clipper Start program. The initiative, which the Metropolitan Transportation Commission launched in 2020, offers reduced fares on more than 20 Bay Area transit operators and is available to those with household income of less than 200% of the region’s federally defined poverty level.
BART management has already baked the 6.2% increase into its revenue projections for the next two fiscal years. The agency is forecasting a balanced budget this year, thanks largely to one-time state aid for its day-to-day operations and to a lesser extent, on a series of cost-cutting moves such as a partial hiring freeze.
However, additional revenue from the new fare hike — somewhere between $15 million and $20 million a year — will do little to solve BART deficits projected to total more than $1 billion by the end of the decade.
The fiscal crisis is driven mostly by the continuing loss of ridership and fare revenue triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago.
BART is among several Bay Area transit agencies, including Muni, AC Transit and Caltrain, that are banking on a regional tax measure planned for the November 2026 ballot to reduce their funding shortfalls.
Without revenue from such a measure, BART has warned that a range of draconian service cuts are likely. Those could include shutting down two of its five lines, closing stations, reducing operating hours and running trains just once an hour.
