As I've argued many times before, San Francisco's doom loop goes into overdrive the moment it runs out of money to keep the public transit system running.
Big cities are built around public transportation (trains and buses) and those systems are key to the future of downtown SF and the city's overall recovery. And yet, they are currently on the brink of major cuts because ridership is down and costs are up...
If public transportation gets cut, then SF really is in doom loop territory. Once those cuts are made, the chances of downtown recovery go down sharply. On the contrary, it would reinforce all of the negative trends the city is trying to overcome, i.e. fewer people downtown, more vacancies, less tax revenue, less money for services, etc.
There are signs that the moment people have been dreading is here. Last Friday the BART train system had to suspend all service because of a computer glitch.
Bay Area Rapid Transit suspended all service Friday morning due to a systemwide computer equipment failure that occurred following network upgrade work.
The problem arose before trains started running for the day.
BART said riders should "consider alternate means of transportation" as technicians work to resolve the issue.
"A computer equipment problem following network upgrade work is preventing the start of service this morning," BART officials said in an email alert to riders.
This isn't the first major glitch the system has experienced recently. Often when you see these kind of major problems happening, it's a signal that the system is not being properly maintained and possibly that corners are being cut to save money. But things got substantially worse on Saturday when the state backed out of a promised $750 million loan that was designed to keep the system going.
Bay Area commuters may see devastating cuts to transit service because Gov. Gavin Newsom is backtracking on a promise to provide a critical $750 million loan to BART, Muni and other regional transit agencies, local lawmakers say.
Lawmakers and Newsom agreed to the loan as part of the state budget passed in June, contingent on details about how and when the money would be paid back being worked out later this year. Newsom staff members now say they want to table the matter until next year, and that they are confident these agencies will sustain operations until then.
There is almost no time to do anything about this as the deadline to make it happen is today. And if a plan to come up with the money can't be reached, the cuts to the system will be severe.
If the two sides can’t agree by Tuesday, the deadline for all bill language to be made public, the loan is dead — lawmakers won’t be able to pass it before they adjourn for the year Friday. Wiener and fellow state Sen. Jesse Arreguín, D-Berkeley, say Newsom’s Department of Finance informed them at the end of last week that it wouldn’t finalize details of the loan before the end of the legislative session...
Without that funding, the senators say, BART will have to close stations and limit train service on many routes to once an hour. Muni could face a 50% reduction in frequency on many lines. As transit commutes become untenable, workers will shift to driving, leading to miserable freeway congestion, they warn.
With the city's future on the line, Mayor Lurie and State Sen. Wiener are working the phones to the governor's office hourly.
With Bay Area transit agencies on the brink of insolvency, local officials are in full crisis mode.
...Over the weekend, Mayor Daniel Lurie was in direct communication with Newsom to resuscitate the agreement. And on Monday, top staffers from Lurie’s office, including transit czar Alicia Jon-Baptiste and State and Federal Affairs Manager Eileen Mariano, met with the governor’s office in Sacramento to move the loan forward.
All the poking and prodding appears to have worked — at least in the interim. Newsom’s team announced Monday that it would continue working on a deal that it hopes will come through in the fall.
“We have been in hourly, and I mean hourly, communication with the governor and his office to reach an agreement where everyone wins,” Lurie said Monday. “The governor has made it clear to me that he understands the importance of this loan.”
“If we do nothing, BART will collapse. Muni will cut service by 50%. And Caltrain and AC Transit will unravel,” Wiener told the Assembly Transportation Committee on Monday. In the afternoon, the committee moved SB 63 along in an 11-5 vote.
The bottom line here is that San Francisco's chances of a recovery, which were already looking pretty dim, will fall off a cliff if public transportation gets cut. This is make or break time for the city's future. They either get something done this week or they ride the doom loop all the way down.
