San Francisco Mayor Says Transit Funds Needed To Save Downtown

San Francisco officials said the state of California must provide funding for its transit system if it is to remain viable and help contribute to the revitalization of a downtown corridor that continues to struggle with homelessness, drug use and squalor. 

Mayor London Breed sent a letter to California Assembly Member Phil Ting asking him to advocate for the provision of emergency funds for BART and the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. 

“Public transportation is essential for our economic recovery,” Breed said in a tweet on Tuesday. “Our residents, workers, and visitors rely on it. We can’t let Muni and BART fail for lack of emergency funding.”

State Sen. Scott Weiner, who also represents San Francisco, has expressed support for bolstering transit funds in the budget, but Ting sent out an email on Thursday saying that he would not support a large infusion of funds without detailed plans from transit officials about how they plan to provide better service, safety and cleanliness. 

“Too many people have told me they don't want to ride transit because they don't feel safe or seats are not clean,” he wrote. 

Trains and buses have dealt with the same problems as San Francisco in general, which continues to struggle to come back from the pandemic when remote work first took off. Many of the tech companies that once populated downtown have embraced remote work indefinitely and have also laid off workers as their pandemic-fueled growth has decelerated. The drop means fewer office workers in the downtown area and less ridership for office commuters coming into the city on a daily basis. 

Breed said that many bus lines will have to be discontinued and BART services might be stopped altogether on the weekends and after work hours.

While BART and the city of San Francisco grapple with budget gaps, the state of California is also expecting a $32B shortfall in the upcoming fiscal year, meaning it may be difficult to find funds for the city’s transit needs. 

The current iteration of the budget calls for the allotment of transit funds according to population, but San Francisco officials say that allotment doesn’t recognize the acuity of the problems in San Francisco relative to other cities, nor the burden tourism puts on its public transportation network.

California is due to have a balanced budget on June 15.