FUNDING ‘LIFELINE’
Transit agencies hope COVID stimulus fuels rebound
Marin County transit officials are hopeful that a funding infusion from the latest federal pandemic stimulus bill could begin to reverse major service cuts and financial losses inflicted by the crisis.
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan signed into law by President Joe Biden on Thursday includes $30.5 billion for public transit agencies nationwide. About $1.7 billion is expected to go to the Bay Area. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which administers funding in the ninecounty Bay Area, plans to divvy up the funds among 12 urban areas from Gilroy to Santa Rosa.
“The bill will ensure public transit agencies
throughout our region continue to serve as a lifeline to our essential workforce,” said Marin County Supervisor Damon Connolly, an MTC commissioner and member of the Marin Transit and Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit governing boards. “With this additional funding, transit agencies will also be able to continue to provide transportation to COVID vaccination sites and the additional funding will ensure transit agencies are key partners in our collective recovery from the pandemic.”
The San FranciscoOakland region, which includes Marin County, could receive $1.25 billion in aid — nearly as much as the entire Bay Area was allotted last year
"Our urbanized areas can’t blossom again and enjoy their full economy and cultural vitality absent mobility in the region."
— Denis Mulligan, Golden Gate Bridge district
from the first coronavirus stimulus bill, known as the CARES Act. The region includes major Bay Area transit providers such as BART, Caltrain, San Francisco Muni, AC Transit and the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.
David Schonbrunn, president of the Train Riders Association of California and a critic of the MTC, said ridership on Bay Area transit was trending down before the pandemic. Transit agencies should focus on using the funds to improve the convenience and connections for passengers, especially given the uncertainty of what ridership will look like when the economy fully reopens, he said.
“This is not something that agencies do well,” Schonbrunn said. “Now that passengers are even less likely to ride transit as compared to the past, passengers can't be overlooked as they have been in the past.”
It could take as long as four months before local agencies will actually see the American Rescue Plan funding while the MTC determines how to allocate the funds. In the meantime, more than $800 million from the previous federal stimulus bill signed by President Donald Trump in December is set to keep transit agencies afloat for the next several months. The MTC is expected to vote on these funds on March 24.
The Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District was readying to lay off 146 of its bus and ferry employees in January in response to significant ridership and bridge toll losses from the pandemic. Now the district expects it will be able to cover its losses and avoid layoffs through at least the end of the calendar year with an expected infusion of more than $60 million from the December stimulus bill.
The additional dollars from the American Rescue Plan will give agencies greater ability to weather an uncertain future for transit ridership in a postpandemic world, said Denis Mulligan, general manager of the bridge district.
“The American Rescue Plan will allow the region to help transit come out the other side of the pandemic stronger than ever,” Mulligan said. “Our urbanized areas can't blossom again and enjoy their full economy and cultural vitality absent mobility in the region.”
With ferry and bus ridership down as much as 95% still, many employees are now working in other roles like managing the mass vaccination site set up at the Larkspur ferry terminal parking lot, Mulligan said.
The Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit district, known as SMART, was at a high point in early 2020 with 38 daily train trips, two new stations opening at Larkspur and Novato and some of its largest ridership numbers since starting service in 2017. Now no train service is available on weekends, weekday trips have been cut in half and maintenance projects have been on hold as the district responded to millions of dollars in lost sales tax and fare revenues.
The $1.8 million expected from the December stimulus bill would allow SMART to keep itself afloat through June and avoid layoffs and deeper service cuts, according to Heather McKillop, the district's chief financial officer.
“One of the things we're looking at is: Does it give us the ability to expand some of our service, perhaps bringing back weekend service?” McKillop said.
However, SMART expects to end the fiscal year with about $9 million less fare and sales tax revenues than originally budgeted, McKillop said. The additional money from the American Rescue Plan would help
cover these losses and potentially allow the rail line to resume stalled projects and add more trips, she said.
Marin Transit has had a different experience during the pandemic in that it has not laid off staff and has actually increased the frequency of some bus routes to make up for passenger limits during the pandemic.
“We have been lucky,” said Nancy Whelan, Marin Transit's general manager. “We have not cut any of our regular service.”
All of this is possible, however, because of federal stimulus funding that covered significant fare and sales tax losses. Without these federal funds, the agency would have laid off employees and cut service, Whelan said.
Marin Transit expects to receive about $3.7 million from the December stimulus funds, which could cover losses through June.
The Marin Transit board plans to hold a workshop on Monday to discuss its financial standing and how the stimulus funds from both
the December bill and those expected from the American Rescue Plan could be used in the coming year. One potential option is restoring bus service for high school and middle school students that had been cut after schools closed. But Whelan said there are no plans for any new or added service.
“These are one-time funds and we don't want to start a new service that we would have to curtail once those funds go away,” Whelan said. “We are trying to be very cautious with our near-term needs.”
NEW YORK >> A longtime adviser to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo leading the state’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been calling county executives to gauge their loyalty to the Democratic governor amid a sexual harassment investigation, according to reports in The Washington Post and The New York Times.
One Democratic county executive, who was not named by the newspapers, was so disturbed by the call from vaccine “czar” Larry Schwartz that the executive filed notice of an impending ethics complaint with the public integrity unit of the state attorney general’s office on Friday, the newspapers reported.
The executive feared the county’s vaccine supply could suffer if the executive did not indicate support for Cuomo, the Post reported.
Schwartz served as secretary to the governor from 2011 until 2015 and has advised Cuomo off and on since then. He returned last spring to assist the administration with the response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Schwartz, who is working in a volunteer capacity to run New York’s vaccine distribution, acknowledged making the calls to county executives, but told the Post he did not discuss vaccines in the conversations.
“I did nothing wrong,” Schwartz told the newspaper. “I have always conducted myself in a manner commensurate to a high ethical standard.”
But the phone calls could raise questions about an intermingling of politics with the state’s coronavirus response.
“People do not see calls coming from the governor’s mansion as somebody wearing one hat and then putting on another hat,” Arthur Caplan, director of medical ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told the Post. “If you are in control of a vital supply of a lifesaving resource like vaccines, you are carrying an enormous amount of implicit clout when you ask for political allegiance.”
Cuomo is facing allegations that he sexually harassed or behaved inappropriately toward six women, including several former staffers. He has denied touching any women inappropriately.
The three-term governor has rejected calls for his resignation from fellow Democrats, including New York’s two U.S. senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and has asked New Yorkers to await the results of an investigation headed by state Attorney General Letitia James.
Schwartz told the Post that the calls he made to assess political support for Cuomo were distinct from the role he plays in the vaccination effort.
“I did have conversations with a number of County Executives from across the State to ascertain if they were maintaining their public position that there is an ongoing investigation by the State Attorney General and that we should wait for the findings of that investigation before drawing any conclusions,” he wrote in an email.
Beth Garvey, acting counsel to the governor, said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press through a Cuomo spokesperson on Sunday that any assertion Schwartz “acted in any way unethically or in any way other than in the best interest of the New Yorkers that he selflessly served is patently false.”
“Larry answered our call to volunteer in March and has since then worked night and day to help New York through this pandemic, first managing surge capacity, and procuring necessary supplies for the state, setting up the contact tracing efforts, and now assisting with vaccine distribution,” the statement said.
“If you are in control of a vital supply of a lifesaving resource like vaccines, you are carrying an enormous amount of implicit clout when you ask for political allegiance.”
— Arthur Caplan, director of medical ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine