The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors has approved a last-minute resolution last week to commit to providing Bay Area Rapid Transit $10.3 million for purchasing materials to build new fare gates on the heels of a Monday deadline with the transit system’s contractor.
The Board held an emergency special meeting Friday afternoon to make a decision on whether the county will promise to allocate funding to support BART’s construction of updated fare gates at the county’s five stations in the event that BART does not secure outside funding.
The new fare gates, which are designed to deter fare evasion, have already been erected at dozens of BART stations across the region. However, the process of getting them installed at Colma, Daly City, South San Francisco, San Bruno, and Millbrae BART stations has been murkier. BART is hoping to get funding for the fare gates in county through a grant from the San Mateo County Transportation Authority’s Regional Transit Connections Program.
The San Mateo County Transportation Authority, or SMCTA, is in charge of overseeing and funding regional transit projects.
In 2018 voters passed Measure W, a 30-year, half-cent sales tax to support investments in transportation. Ten percent of Measure W funds go toward SMCTA’s Regional Transit Connection Program, a program focused on supporting transit projects that connect San Mateo County with the surrounding Bay Area regions.
BART is applying for a grant from the program to go toward buying and constructing new fare gates at San Mateo County’s BART stations. However, the application for the grant does not open for another several months.
At the same time, BART’s contractor for the new fare gates gave BART a March 31 deadline to notify the contractor to order materials for new gates at the five stations in San Mateo County. If the deadline passed, BART would have been subject to paying higher costs for the materials.
BART approached the Board at the last minute, asking if it would be willing to provide funding for the gates in case BART is not granted funding from SMCTA.
But the Board’s decision to promise the funding did not pass without criticism.
District 3 Supervisor Ray Mueller appeared frustrated by the last-minute nature of BART’s request. He questioned why BART did not come to the Board sooner instead of just one month before their March 31 deadline.
“I don’t know when BART got the extension to March 31,” Mueller said. “That’s problematic because it was brought to us at a time when there was already a gun to the county’s head to try to figure this out.”
District 1 Supervisor Jackie Speier echoed Mueller’s comments, calling out BART for the rushed manner in which it approached the Board, asking for the county to commit to providing $10.3 million.
“The fact that BART only came to the county a month ago and County Executive Callagy had to negotiate with all of the cities in an effort to make this work, would suggest that it’s yet another example of how BART is virtually incompetent in doing so many things,” Speier said.
‘Restoring faith’ in public transportation
The resolution allows the county to back out of paying for fare gates if the city councils where each station is do not pay their fair share. It is up to the city councils ultimately to decide if they want to install the new fare gates at their BART stations.
“This really will be dependent upon the cities going to their councils and getting the guarantees of paying back the county if we front the money,” said County Executive Officer Mike Callagy at Friday’s meeting.
All five supervisors voted ‘yes’ for the resolution. Many agreed that benefits of installing the new fare gates are paramount.
“It is so critical to invest in these station improvements to help restore ridership to pre-pandemic levels, ease congestion on Highway 101, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and restore faith in public transportation,” said Supervisor David Canepa.