BART Proposes Station Closures and Fare Hikes to Deal with Massive Budget Shortfall

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, Politics, News Commentary

4.2 • 726 Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Facing a $376 million deficit, BART announced that without more funding, it will consider drastic cuts including closing one-third of its 50 stations and raising fares by 30%. The agency is pinning its financial future on a proposed sales tax on the November ballot as it struggles to recover from a changed post-pandemic commuting pattern. What would the Bay Area be without BART? We talk to the agency’s manager and hear from you. Guests: Robert Powers, general manager, Bay Area Rapid Transit Jesse Arreguin, California state senator, District 7 Dionne Adams, mayor, Pittsburgh, CA Melissa Hernandez, president, BART board of directors; former mayor, Dublin, CA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Support for KQED Podcasts comes from the Exploratorium After Dark.
0:04.7	Adults 18 plus discover mind-bending programs and grab a drink every Thursday from 6 to 10 p.m.
0:11.4	Tickets at Exploratorium.edu slash after dark.
0:15.3	Support for KQED podcasts comes from San Francisco International Airport, celebrating the year of the horse.
0:23.1	This Lunar New Year SFO can connect you to over 130 destinations worldwide.
0:28.9	Details at flysfo.com slash nonstop.
0:33.9	From KQED.
0:36.4	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:38.3	The story of how Bart got into a financial crisis is really very simple, it seems.
0:44.3	Bart was built to deliver commuters to downtown San Francisco, and it did this admirably well,
0:50.3	recovering 71% of its operating budget just from fares in the years before the
0:56.1	pandemic, which is one of the highest rates in the world.
0:59.8	Then the pandemic hit.
1:01.4	Workers still have not returned to downtown San Francisco in their previous numbers, and
1:05.0	it seems as likely as not that they never will.
1:08.9	So now the system is in a terrible bind running a massive deficit
1:13.0	and with almost no hope that there will be a boom in ridership anytime soon. The agency now
1:19.7	has its hopes pinned on a November ballot measure that would deliver over $300 million per year,
1:25.4	according to BART, mostly closing its deficit.
1:29.0	Today, we talk about the various scenarios for service, what the ballot measure might not fix
1:34.2	and dig into the BART budget. We're joined first by Robert Powers, General Manager of BART. Welcome,
1:40.2	Bob. Thank you for having me, Alexis.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KQED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KQED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.