The BART Board of Directors passed a two-year budget Thursday that included a $93 million budget deficit starting in March 2025. It was unclear Monday morning whether Newsom is on board with the transit subsidy. The governor cast doubt on a transit subsidy as California girds for a $31.5 billion budget deficit that could grow larger when updated projections come out this fall. Newsom’s revised May budget proposal didn’t include any subsidy for transit operations and kept the $2 billion cut to what’s known as the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program. “We estimate that, over the next three years, this flexible funding eliminates as much as half of the Bay Area’s transit fiscal cliff.”Ī transit bailout in the state budget would be a surprising development. “This is a very meaningful step in tackling the fiscal cliff,” Wiener, the biggest advocate for transit agencies in the Legislature, said in a statement. Wiener’s office estimates that roughly $400 million of the proposed $1.1 billion in cap-and-trade funds would go to Bay Area transit agencies. Scott Wiener, who confirmed the Legislature’s budget agreement to The Chronicle late Sunday, called the deal “a very positive first step toward securing the future of public transportation in California.” However, the subsidy is expected to preserve current Bay Area transit service - at least in the near term - if it makes it in the state budget. It’s unclear, exactly, how much of the announced cap-and-trade funds would go to Bay Area transit agencies if lawmakers and Newsom pass the proposal, as well as to what degree they would use the newly flexible capital dollars to fund service.Īlso unclear is whether the transit subsidy would come with policy strings attached - such as added state financial oversight - called for by several lawmakers. Officials at both those agencies warned of significant service cuts - including shuttered Muni bus lines and no weekend BART service - starting as early as this fall without state intervention. The region’s two largest systems, BART and Muni, project they will reach their fiscal cliffs in 2025 after running out of the federal aid that kept their trains and buses running during the pandemic. The inclusion of a transit bailout in the state budget would likely push back the “doomsday” service cuts that BART, Muni and other Bay Area transit systems projected would become reality once they reach their so-called “fiscal cliffs.” Under the state Assembly and Senate’s budget agreement, California transit agencies would also receive $1.1 billion in state cap-and-trade funds over three years to fund operations.
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