Bay Area residents who frequently travel across the Bay Bridge may see their commutes nearly double if the region’s transit systems fail to secure new funding and instead enter a “fiscal death spiral,” a new report finds.
The San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) released a report on Tuesday, Sept. 22, evaluating the potential consequences for regional traffic if the Bay Area’s largest transit systems – Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), Caltrain, Muni, and Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District – have to cut service as a result of two new funding-source ballot measures failing to pass in November.
“The impacts would be dramatic,” the report reads. “Our analysis finds that reduced transit service would push more people into cars, worsening congestion on already-strained highways and increasing travel distances, parkingdemand, driving costs, and greenhouse gas emissions.”
For years, the Bay Area’s regional transit system has struggled to maintain consistent ridership and rebound to pre-pandemic utilization levels. As a result, several major transit systems face significant financial challenges that didn’t become apparent to the public until earlier this year, when BART, Muni, and Caltrain announced plans to cut service to meet their reduced budgets…