SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — On the agenda for the BART board meeting Thursday, presenting the worst-case scenario in order to balance the agency’s annual deficit of up to $400 million.
The doomsday plan includes closing the 10 stations with the lowest ridership. That means closing 20% of its stations, impacting 12% of riders.
They include Oakland International Airport, South San Francisco and West Dublin/Pleasanton.
“It’s a tragedy,” said Ed Locker, a BART Rider from Santa Rosa. “Everybody uses BART and has for over 50 years, I think. It would be a real sad thing.”
“Whenever we need to travel, we take one of the two airports and it’s so nice not having to drive or take a shuttle or taxi or whatever,” said Brian Smith, a BART Rider from El Cerrito.
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The agency has experienced reduced ridership since the COVID-19 pandemic and a shift in ridership with work-from-home trends.
Thursday, the agency will also tout the success of their new gates at all 50 stations to prevent fare evasion.
BART Spokesperson Alicia Trost said the new gates generate $10 million a year for the agency. And she said that’s not the only benefit.
She said the fare gates are helping prevent unwanted behavior.
“The people that were doing this type of damage to our stations have either just stopped doing that type of damage or they’re not coming into our stations at all,” Trost said.
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BART data shows at Embarcadero station they’ve saved 110 hours in maintenance in the six months after the new gates were installed.
Across all stations, there’s been a 961-hour reduction.
“These cases all the time were getting significantly vandalized, whether just completely shattering the glass, that was very common to see, or absolute graffiti all over where you can’t see a map,” Trost said pointing to framed map at a station in Oakland.
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Other options to make up for the deficit include a reduction in train service and layoffs.
The agency said this would be needed if a potential ballot measure in November doesn’t pass or additional funding doesn’t come in.
A board vote on the proposal is expected on Feb 25.
For more information on the meeting.
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