BART says it could close up to 15 rapid-transit stations, eliminate the Blue line that runs between Daly City and Dublin/Pleasanton, and reduce service system-wide if voters turn down a sales tax increase planned for November.
The grim forecast, released Thursday by the BART Board of Directors, illustrates what could be at stake without the roughly $1 billion a year in added taxes for BART, AC Transit, Caltrain and San Francisco Muni.
A $590 million loan was approved at the end of January by the state and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to bolster the four transit systems for fiscal 2026-27.
The board will hold a public workshop to consider the report Feb. 12 in Oakland, during which it will also review budget and service plans for the next fiscal year and beyond, to consider different funding scenarios.
BART has been grappling with enormous budget deficits since 2020 amid plunging ridership and the later loss of pandemic-era financial support from the federal government.
Trying to get back in the black
The agency is trying to manage a roughly $1.2 billion annual budget that has been running yearly deficits of about $370 million, or about 30%.
Short-term funding has kept BART afloat as ridership has slowly ticked up over the last year.
But the agency has pinned its long-term prospects on the regional sales tax measure called “Connect Bay Area” that would increase the sales tax in the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara and San Mateo by a half-cent and in San Francisco by 1 cent for 14 years.
The extra half-cent in San Francisco would be directed towards SF Muni to shore up its bus and light rail service.
A signature gathering campaign to qualify the measure for the 2026 ballot kicked off Monday.
Without the sales tax, BART’s report said, its contingency plan would move forward in 2027 in three phases.
In January, BART would close 10 stations, raise fares by 30% and reduce service by 63%. Maintenance and other expenditures would be deferred, and policing in stations would be reduced.
The service reduction would trim train arrivals to every half hour and mean the last trains would be at 9 p.m.
Phase two would see five more stations closed in July 2027, further fare increases and discontinuance of the Blue line between Daly City and Dublin/Pleasanton.
Reduced schedules, truncated routes
Yellow line service would terminate in Concord if phase two cuts are implemented, Orange line service would end at Bay Fair, and most Yellow line stations south of Daly City would close. Service would be suspended on most stations built after 1976, according to the staff report.
Further reductions, including shutting down the system completely, could be considered if no solution is available.
BART is trying to manage cuts with the impacts they would have on revenue and has said in past analysis that service reductions alone cannot make up the deficit, meaning any solution must include increased revenue in some form.
Jeff Cretan, a spokesman for the Connect Bay Area campaign, said the cuts would set back the system 50 years.
“The Bay Area needs public transit so people have a safe, affordable, and efficient way to get wherever they need to go,” he said. “This will make the region less affordable for working people and jeopardize the Bay Area’s economic recovery.”