Afternoon rush hour brought the sounds of hundreds, if not thousands, of people tagging their Clipper cards and pushing their way through turnstiles on a recent Thursday at Embarcadero station in downtown San Francisco.
Among the crowds was Anna Kondolf, from the town of Fairfax in Marin County, who was on her way to a dinner date in the city.
“ I thought, why don’t we do this more? Because it was just so great to take the ferry here and then take BART,” Kondolf said. “It all kind of works.”
It works, for now, but that interconnected network of transit could soon be severely reduced. Transit agencies across the Bay Area are forecasting drastic service cuts if nothing is done to alleviate multimillion-dollar budget deficits set to begin in 2026.
State Sens. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, and Jesse Arreguín, D-Berkeley, earlier this year introduced a bill, set to be heard Monday in the state Senate Appropriations Committee, that would put a sales tax on the ballot in some Bay Area counties next year in order to help fund these agencies and save the region’s public transit network as we know it.
“We all need to work together and lock arms and understand that if our transit systems collapse, if we see catastrophic service cuts at Muni, BART, AC Transit and Caltrain, that’s terrible for the entire region,” Wiener told KQED.
As it is currently written, Wiener and Arreguín’s SB 63 would put a measure on the November 2026 ballot to impose a 0.5% sales tax in Alameda and Contra counties, and a 0.5% to 1% sales tax in San Francisco County.
Revenue from the tax would primarily go toward funding San Francisco’s Muni, BART, AC Transit and Caltrain. Smaller transit agencies in the East Bay would also be eligible to receive funds.
An analysis by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission found that the tax could generate between roughly $440 million and $550 million a year, depending on the tax rate.
Wiener pulled a similar but farther-reaching bill from consideration last year in the face of widespread opposition. That effort would have covered all nine Bay Area counties and aimed to raise $1.5 billion for a wide variety of transit, street and highway improvements.
This year, the bill was narrowed down to just three counties, though it also includes a provision for San Mateo and Santa Clara counties to opt in by a July 31 deadline.
“ I’m cautiously optimistic about the bill’s prospects, but it ain’t over until it’s over,” Wiener said.
Of all the Bay Area’s main transit agencies, BART has the biggest deficit and is forecasting the most severe cuts.
Beginning in fiscal year 2026, BART said its budget deficit will balloon to around $385 million. If SB 63 fails, the agency is considering cost-saving scenarios, including cutting two lines entirely, closing on weekends and shutting down the system at 9 p.m.
“We’re not talking about their ability to continue to sustain the service that they have today by any stretch,” said Rebecca Long, director of legislation and public affairs at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
The effects of those cuts would not only be isolated to people who take public transit.
“If BART runs out of funding, drivers will sit in traffic for an extra 12 or more hours per week on average,” Laura Tolkoff, transportation policy director at the planning and urban research nonprofit SPUR, said at a media briefing.
Shades of that were seen Friday morning when a computer networking problem completely shut down BART for hours. Traffic on roads and bridges was snarled, with hundreds more Bay Bridge crossings recorded than the Friday before.
A group of activists who support SB 63 took it as an opportunity to remind drivers what’s at stake if transit funding dries up, gathering at the backed-up Interstate 80 westbound off-ramp on Fremont Street in San Francisco with signs in support of BART and Muni.
“Without sufficient funding, these kinds of problems are going to get worse,” transportation activist Cyrus Hall said. “BART’s been running on a shoestring for years, and we need to fix that now.”
Muni, which is facing a deficit of around $320 million beginning July 2026, has discussed the need to cut up to 20 bus lines and reduce service on up to 28 bus and train routes if SB 63 fails, according to a Senate analysis.
AC Transit and Caltrain have smaller deficits (around $30 million and $80 million, respectively) but are still forecasting service cuts without help.
Together, the four agencies represent around 80% of all Bay Area public transit trips, according to Long.
While most transit agencies, but BART and Caltrain in particular, have historically relied on fares to fund operations, these agencies saw ridership plummet by 70% to 98% due to the pandemic, Long said. And although ridership is slowly recovering, it still hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels.
“Essentially, we need to rebuild the business model for transit,” Long said.
Wiener said he is focused on “trying to build as much regional support as possible.”
“ It’s complicated because all the different counties have different needs, different desires,” Wiener said.
Transit agencies’ boards have been meeting in recent weeks to discuss whether to back the measure. The Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, which oversees Caltrain, voted May 1 to endorse it.
The board that oversees the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, or VTA, is still weighing whether to endorse Santa Clara County joining the regional sales tax measure.
At a May 1 board meeting, some members expressed concern that Santa Clara County will not get a fair amount of revenue.
Meanwhile, polling commissioned by AC Transit showed that 54% of voters surveyed support a possible future parcel tax, separate from SB 63, to fund operations in the East Bay agency’s district alone.
The bill must be approved by the Senate by June 6 to make it to the Assembly floor. If it survives the Legislature and makes it onto the November 2026 ballot, it would need a simple majority from voters to pass.
A poll of voters in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco and San Mateo counties, commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and released in February, found that 54% of voters would vote yes on a half-cent sales tax to avoid major transit cuts.
Wiener said he is working with other lawmakers on a budget request worth $2 billion to fund public transit statewide in the meantime.
“If the regional measure is successful, the cash will start coming in in 2027,” Wiener said, “The idea is to make sure that we don’t have to have service cuts before then.”
Advocates are stressing the importance of public transit for the overall health of the Bay Area economy, as the region continues to struggle to recover from the economic devastation wrought by the pandemic.
“It’s the scaffolding for our economy,” said Tolkoff of SPUR. “When we think of how many organizations are trying to mandate people coming back into the office four or five days a week, we’re hearing that just won’t be possible if people can’t get to work on transit.”
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