Before new taxes, Bay Area's transit must first reform

Bay Area transit officials are seeking bailouts from Sacramento and considering asking voters for yet another regional measure to bolster funding for bus, ferry and commuter rail service.

There's little doubt that the area's transit agencies have been financially hard hit by radical changes in commute patterns brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic that are probably permanent. More people are working from home; fewer are using transit to commute to core business centers in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland.

But if transit agencies want more money from state lawmakers or voter approval, perhaps in 2026, of tax increases, fare hikes and/or higher bridge tolls, they should first make overdue changes to ensure new and existing funds are spent more efficiently and service improves.

To help reduce the region's greenhouse gas emissions, we need public transit to be successful and well managed. The status quo is unacceptable and should not be rewarded with more public money.

Nowhere is that clearer than at BART, the region's largest commuter rail system and one of the biggest potential beneficiaries of any new revenues. By the end of next year, BART will have spent all its federal COVID relief money and will be staring at budget shortfalls exceeding $300 million annually.

Throughout the pandemic, the transit system's leaders, rather than getting significantly ahead of the looming financial shortfall, issued overly optimistic ridership and farerevenue projections that assumed workers would steadily return to their offices.

That's not happening. Of all major cities in the country, San Francisco has had the slowest return of downtown activity. Which helps explain why BART lags all its peers across the nation in ridership recovery.

There were only 3.9 million trips on BART in November. That's just 40% of the same month three years earlier. And that's despite the opening of service to Milpitas and North San Jose during that time.

BART officials can bury their heads in the sand no longer. They will need to make more significant cuts. And if they want more public money, they need to demonstrate responsible fiscal and operational management.

That means that BART officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom must end their obstruction of independent oversight mandated by Bay Area voters when they approved in 2018 regional bridge toll increases. BART needs to stop fighting the district's inspector general, who, despite obstacles, has uncovered legally questionable contracting practices, a $2.2 million contract involving former BART employees and troubling conflicts of interest, $350,000 spent on a wasteful homeless program, and a maintenance worker who collected pay and benefits for time not worked.

Rather than embrace the findings and make changes, district officials and BART labor unions have opposed legislative attempts to give the inspector general essential access to facilities, employees and documents necessary for doing her job. Last year, Newsom, caving to the labor unions, vetoed a bill by state Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, that would have given the BART IG those powers.

Glazer has introduced a new bill this year that would simply grant the BART inspector general the same powers and access as the IG for the state Department of Transportation. Any new money for Bay Area transit should be contingent on the bill's passage and requirements that all the region's bus and rail systems are subjected to the same sort of oversight.

BART is certainly not the only transit agency guilty of obfuscation. We saw that with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority's attempt last year to hide the rapidly escalating cost of the planned BART extension to downtown San Jose.

New money for the region's transit agencies should also be contingent on consolidation and coordination of the region's ridiculous 27 transit agencies to provide greater efficiency and ensure riders can transfer seamlessly.

The transit agencies, especially BART, must be stopped from using for operations voter-approved bond funding that was supposed to go for capital projects. And labor contracts with excessively costly benefits should be renegotiated as a condition for new funding.

Transit agencies are financially suffering. The new commute patterns are driving much of the shortfall. But if bus and commuter rail agencies want more public money, either from state coffers or new voter-approved revenue, they need to demonstrate that they will behave more responsibly and change their fiscal ways as they adapt to the new reality.