The BART website clearly states that they are able to provide current operations due to COVID funding which runs out in 2025. They plan to stop offering weekend routes, stop running after 9PM, reduce train frequency to every 60 minutes, etc.
BART's budget is not funded by San Francisco. I think there are many sources of funding such as bridge and highway tolls which should be explored to shore up BART operating budgets. In addition, BART should abandon boondoggle capital projects like the monstrous tunnel VTA is proposing in the San Jose extension to invest in ways that improve service on existing lines. Finally, it is more than reasonable to redirect highway spending to transit.
That sounds reasonable enough, thanks. It looks like tolls generate ~750M currently and BART shortfall is ~330M. So, it's doable if we're able to push through an increase of 50% on tolls.
I wasn't able to easily look up our highway spending budget.
That's not what BART's report says, at all. That is a worst case analysis. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission required all agencies to undertake an unusual analysis using scenarios provided by MTC. The report concludes that BART cannot cut its way to solvency in the given scenarios. The report does not reflect BART's actual projections or plans.
Okay, sorry if I am fearmongering. It's not my intent. What do you feel will happen?
From my perspective, there's a website that has the word crisis in the URL, a chart that shows a ~40% loss in revenue due, and the two-year SF budget shortfall is trending up - recently revised from $720M to $780M. I find it challenging to take away an alternative perspective when none is offered up on the website beyond "be a transit champion."
This is a bit too optimistic. BART in its current two year budget is projecting consecutive years of $300m operating deficits. That is very far from sustainable and not an unusual worst case.
Many subway systems are profitable, like the Tokyo JR East. If there is a will there is a way. Americans simply prefer sprawl and cars when it comes down to it.
The vast majority are not, the systems in a bunch of Asian cities (mostly in Japan, HK, Taiwan, Singapore) are the exception due to a few reasons, most notably because they use distance-based fares and land around stations often belongs to the operator bringing in massive commercial revenues.
It's impossible to know if Americans genuinely prefer sprawl because the alternative of building more compact communities is banned by regulation all over.
>Transportation infrastructure isn’t meant to be financially viable.
Not profitable != not financially viable. At some point, anything that loses too much money becomes not become viable. Transportation isn't exempt from this.
>* Users of the highway passenger transportation system paid significantly greater amounts of money to the federal government than their allocated costs in 1994-2000. <https://web.archive.org/web/20170628114204/http://www.rita.d...> This was a result of the increase in the deficit reduction motor fuel tax rates between October 1993 and September 1997, and the increase in Highway Trust Fund fuel tax rates starting in October 1997.
>* School and transit buses received positive net federal subsidies over the 1990-2002 period, but autos, motorcycles, pickups and vans, and intercity buses paid more than their allocated cost to the federal government.
>* On average, highway users paid $1.91 per thousand passenger-miles to the federal government over their highway allocated cost during 1990-2002.) track
You are citing a common accounting sleight of hand where you look at federal gas excise revenue and compare it to only federal spending on highways. Some issues:
* This includes an important subsidy from urban road users - who are federal funding ineligible - to highway users.
* Federal funding is only 25% of highway spending, the rest being state and local funds.
* Most road expansion capital projects deliver worse increased passenger throughput per dollar than highway projects.
Regarding costs, a good rule of thumb is the best performing road networks pay for half their expenses with user fees (Texan highways). Some poorly performing ones like Maryland are at 20% (http://www.actfortransit.org/archives/testimonies/2009Apr29T...). Owen D. Gutfreund’s
Twentieth-Century Sprawl is a good reference.
The final logical mistake in this line of analysis is looking at per rider subsidies between roads and transit, since American transit systems are uniquely inefficient precisely because of the burdens on transport laden by the road system. You can’t build densely because everyone thinks their cars won’t fit in the new urban geometry, but density is a precursor to successful transit. So we are stuck in an equilibrium where we prop up despots around the world for gasoline while everyone hates their commute.
