When Jillian Crochet, a disabled power wheelchair user and artist in Oakland, California, waits to take the bus, she already faces delays that many other riders don’t. People are invariably blocking the wheelchair spot, even if it’s not too crowded, and she can end up waiting 20 minutes longer for a new bus. That wait may soon get even longer.
The San Francisco Bay Area is facing a funding crisis for many of its public transit programs. Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), which serves riders across five of the area’s most populous counties, is considering cutting 70 percent of its service and closing up to 15 of 50 stations, some 30 percent. Caltrain, the area’s leading local commuter rail system, could discontinue weekend service and shutter up to a third of its stations. Two major local transit systems, San Francisco’s Muni and AC Transit in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, could also shut down lines. Paratransit would also be impacted, even beyond the potentially longer wait times and fewer slots that transit cuts will inevitably cause…