Transit Advocates Warn of Fiscal Crisis After Newsom Passes on Emergency Funding

As Bay Area transit systems ride on the edge of financial catastrophe, some state leaders and transit advocates were disappointed to see that Gov. Gavin Newsom did not include a funding boost in his revised budget proposal on Wednesday.

State Sens. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, and Jesse Arreguín, D-Berkeley, had asked for $2 billion in emergency funding for transit agencies, a stopgap solution ahead of their proposed sales tax measure for the November 2026 ballot that would raise much-needed money.

Bay Area transit agencies, including BART, Muni, AC Transit and Caltrain, face a combined budget deficit of more than $800 million in the next fiscal year. Without immediate funding, some supporters are worried that the agencies may be forced to reduce operations before a sales tax measure can be voted on.

“It’s critical that we include in the adopted budget funding to keep transit agencies in operation in California,” Arreguín said. “We’re at the edge of a fiscal cliff, and the impact this will have on our state and particularly the Bay Area, will be significant.”

He added, however, that Newsom’s decision not to include transit funds in the revised state budget was not surprising. California now faces a $12 billion budget deficit in the coming fiscal year, according to the governor’s revised proposal, and the Trump administration’s hostilities threaten to further exacerbate the state’s economic uncertainty.

“We knew when we submitted our budget request that it would be challenging,” Arreguín said. “We’re not going to expect that the federal government’s going to save us here, so it’s up to the state. We’re going to work harder over the next few weeks to make our case.”

While Newsom’s revised budget proposal does not include the emergency transit funding, the state Legislature may decide to add it before the budget is finalized in June, Arreguín noted.

If the money doesn’t come through, Arreguín warned that problems like last week’s hourslong BART outage that resulted in massive traffic jams and frustrated commuters could become more common.

Cyrus Hall, a transportation activist, urged state legislators to reconsider the emergency funding. Without the $2 billion requested by Wiener and Arreguín, transit agencies are going to struggle to survive, he said. Many of them, such as BART and Muni, will have to drastically reduce services, which could mean slashing weekend operations and running fewer trains.

Alternatively, transit agencies could also decide to sustain themselves by reallocating funds, Hall said, adding that money typically spent on upkeep may be moved around in order to keep buses running, which could lead to unexpected failures. It’s not sustainable, he said.

“Public transit is that linchpin that allows people to get to work, to get to school. Without it, particularly here in the Bay Area with our geography, transportation will collapse,” Hall said. “We need to find the money in order to keep the system running.”

Rebecca Long, director of legislation and public affairs at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, said that because state funding is unreliable, Bay Area residents should prioritize long-term solutions such as the tax measure proposed by Wiener and Arreguín.

According to Long, while funds resulting from the measure wouldn’t be available until 2027, transit agencies could take out loans against the anticipated funding to prevent service reductions in the meantime.

KQED’s Juan Carlos Lara contributed to this report.