Golden Gate district proposes fare hikes
Bus, ferry riders face higher costs in 5-year plan
Facing a deficit of up to a $423 million as revenues remain well below pre-pandemic levels, the Golden Gate Bridge district is proposing to raise its bus and ferry fares for the next five years.
The proposed fare hikes will not be enough to cover the fiscal cliff that the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District and other Bay Area transit providers are facing as federal relief money they received during the pandemic runs out in the coming years, staff said.
“We've lost so many passengers and we're at a situation where we need to address that difficult cliff in other ways,” Joe Wire, the district's chief financial officer, told the agency's governing board at its Jan. 26 meeting.
Denis Mulligan, the district general manager, said the proposed fare hikes, which would take effect in July, would help cover rising costs and inflation as Bay Area transportation agencies and planners explore options to address the looming fiscal cliff.
“Our biggest cost is our people, and if we're going to
give pay raises to employees, if we're going to make additional contributions to their pensions, we need our revenues to do that,” Mulligan told the board. “This is one way to partially pay for that.”
The district has proposed several options for increasing fares for the public to review and comment on before Feb. 24.
For bus service in the North Bay, San Francisco and the East Bay, the district is proposing the following options:
• Option 1: Increase fares by 25 cents per year for all bus service
• Option 2: Increase fares by 25 cents per year for North Bay-San Francisco bus service
• Option 3: Increase fares by 3% per year for North BaySan Francisco bus service
“There is no analysis of the impact of fare increases on ridership.”
— David Schonbrunn, Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund
• Option 4: Increase fares by 4% per year for North Bay-San Francisco bus service
Depending on the option, the district estimates it would receive $260,000 to $620,000 in additional annual fare revenue.
The district is proposing similar options for ferry fares:
• Option 1: Increase fares by 25 cents per year
• Option 2: Increase fares by 25 cents per year; reduce means-based fares to 50% of Clipper fares rather than single-ride cash fares
• Option 3: Increase Clipper and group fares by 3% per year; reduce meansbased fares to 50% of Clipper fares rather than singleride cash fares
• Option 4: Increase Clipper and group fares by 4% per year; reduce meansbased fares to 50% of Clipper fares rather than singleride cash fares
If the means-based fare changes were implemented today, qualifying riders would pay $3.75 per ride rather than the current $7. The ferry fare increases would provide an estimated $380,000 to $540,000 in new annual revenue depending on the option, according to the district.
The district plans to hold three public meetings by teleconference to hear comments on the proposal. They are scheduled for noon Thursday; 6 p.m. Feb. 21; and 9 a.m. Feb. 23. More information on the meetings and the fare proposal can be found at goldengate.org/ fareplan.
The district is expected to
vote on the proposals at its March 23-24 meetings. Staff said the timeline has been expedited because of the planned update to the Clipper card system, which requires the district to have its new fare schedule adopted before April 1.
The proposed fare increases would not apply to local fixed route service by Marin Transit, which contracts with the bridge district for bus drivers.
“We are currently not considering any new fare increases on local services,” said Robert Betts, Marin Transit operations director.
Bus and ferry ridership remain well below pre-pandemic levels. Farebox recovery for buses is about 7% compared to the agency's target of 20%, staff said. Ferry farebox recovery is about 17%, short of the 40% target.
“These proposed fare increases in these different scenarios do not meet these farebox recovery targets at this time,” district planning director Ron Downing told the board, “but we're looking to increase fares in a percentage similar to the increase in expenses that we have to provide the services.”
Local ridership in Marin County is about 80% of prepandemic levels, according to district spokesperson Paolo Cosulich-Schwartz. By comparison, the commute routes between the North Bay and San Francisco are at about 17% of pre-pandemic levels as offices remain shuttered in San Francisco and employees who once commuted continue to work from home.
Overall, ridership on bus and ferry service is down about 55% from pre-pandemic levels. While ferry service levels have nearly
recovered, the district has continued to run about half of its pre-pandemic bus service in response to low ridership, Cosulich-Schwartz said.
Both ferry and bus services are primarily funded using bridge toll revenues, which also remain well below normal. Bridge crossings are about 80% of normal, resulting in a loss of about $1 million in toll revenue per week, CosulichSchwartz said. This means bus and ferry services are receiving about 40% less funding compared to before the pandemic, he said.
The district has been able to maintain service from the nearly $282.5 million it received in federal relief funding during the pandemic, but that money is expected to run out in the 2025-2026 fiscal year. Once the funding is depleted, the district projects it will have a $93.8 million shortfall, according to Cosulich-Schwartz.
The projected $423 million deficit the district faces assumes that the district will resume pre-pandemic bus and ferry service levels within the five-year period. The district has reduced service in response to the lower ridership.
The district does not have plans in the near term to resume those service levels given ridership levels, Cosulich-Schwartz said. If the district continues to restore service based on ridership levels, the projected deficit is estimated to be closer to $187 million in the next five years.
Many Bay Area transit services have been sustained by billions of dollars in federal relief funding. But as the funding begins to dry up and ridership continues a sluggish recovery, transit
agencies such as BART, Caltrain, San Francisco Muni and others face the possibility of having to make significant service cuts unless other funding can be found. At the same time, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed $2 billion in cuts in transit funding in the upcoming 2023-2024 state budget to address a projected $22.5 billion deficit.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission — the nine-county Bay Area's top transportation planning and financing agency — is exploring options to address the financial crisis, including a proposal for a Bay Area tax measure on the 2024 ballot.
David Schonbrunn, director of the Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund in San Rafael, said Bay Area transit agencies face a “disastrous financial cliff” if ridership doesn't return, but said the district's plan does not address how it will recover ridership.
“Golden Gate's financial planning assumes that all of the previous ridership returns, which is an aggressive assumption because of the shift to partial in-office work weeks,” Schonbrunn wrote. “The staff report doesn't deal with that at all, which seems ostrichlike, to me. Golden Gate's practice is to see the faresetting process only as a financial decision.”
“What's missing is how the fare affects the people who use the service,” Schonbrunn said. “This is important, because the whole point of the service is to carry people. There is no analysis of the impact of fare increases on ridership, which is partly a function of the income distribution of the riders.”