In a bit of transit news even better than learning the liquid you sat in is only water, the group organizing to put a five-county BART rescue measure onto the ballot announced today that it has cleared its signature-gathering goal — by a lot.
The group Connect Bay Area had until June 3 to collect about 186,000 signatures to qualify a measure that will provide a financial lifeline for BART and other area transit agencies for the November ballot. It ended up with around 305,000, easily enough to avoid being disqualified by the odd bogus signature or duplication.
Barring unforeseen lunacy, Bay Area voters will have the opportunity this year to vote yea or nay on a sales tax that could provide an estimated $310 million for BART.
Considering the transit agency is facing a looming $376 million deficit, the cash transfusion is expected to prevent BART from drastically reducing schedules, maintenance and cleanings — or even, in a realistic worst-case scenario, folding altogether.
“Major milestone achieved!” said Sal Cruz, the president of AFSCME Local 3993, which represents BART’s supervisory and professional workers. “Supporters of public transit from across the Bay Area demonstrated with their intensity and dedication just how important this mission is for all of us.”
Transit workers and enthusiasts, gathering signatures on their own time, had an outsized effect: The campaign expected they would bring in some 28,000 signatures. They brought in near triple that: 77,000.
While signature-gatherers received a notably cold shoulder from passengers on transit, they evidently had better luck elsewhere: At farmers markets, No Kings rallies, Giants games and the Hunky Jesus contest. Gas prices spiking to infinity and beyond may also have helped.
Once the signatures are ratified, the next move is to fundraise and campaign for the actual measure.
To pass, the measure only needs a majority of votes across the five counties: San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and Santa Clara. November 2025 polling put the measure at 56-percent approval, and there is no significant campaign being run against it.
The measure, unsurprisingly, polls far higher in transit-rich San Francisco and Alameda Counties. The strategies to win over each county will differ.
While the measure does not need to pass in every county, it is notable that the it will provide transit dollars not just for BART but for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, AC Transit, CalTrain, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, the Contra Costa County Transportation Authority, the San Mateo County Transit District and other regional outfits.
In addition to providing funding, the legislation will also mandate BART (as well as Muni, Caltrain, AC Transit, etc.) to be subjected to independent financial efficiency reviews by a third-party for how they use the funds raised by the measure. If they fail to comply, their money could be withheld.
“A few months ago, we were all a little bit nervous: The paid signature-gatherers were so overstretched because of all the stuff happening at the state level,” said Sen. Scott Wiener, who, after three years of legislative bus-driving, has finally qualified a transit revenue measure for the ballot. “The volunteer transit nerds saved the day.”
The focus now turns from qualifying the revenue measure to passing it. Wiener, who says he “wakes up every morning worrying about service cuts,” describes the measure as “truly existential.”
Personally I would rather it not shut down.
What we have here is a BART system that was aligned to serve downtown San Francisco by enabling commuter housing development in the East Bay.
This tax is a regressive tax that hits working people to subsidize the intensity of BART service to downtown SF to prop up the values of office buildings where people used to work.
BOMA and the downtown SF office building owners should be the ones paying for BART’s deficit as those building owners have been the recipients of public transit subsidy for decades.
Otherwise, we’ve got a regressive sales tax boosting REIT asset valuations.
I have a better idea – for decades, California has been paying more in federal taxes than we received in return. And now we find ourselves with a measure taxing ourselves to keep BART et al running, so we can get around to earn those taxes that leave the state? I don’t think so. Instead, how about we scrap that, and have our representatives and senators in Congress get going and find the money in D.C. (like they’re supposed to)
Either that or #CalExit
Why people signed on the dotted line for this “the world will end” con job sales tax is beyond me.
Tax “enthusiasts” gleefully looking forward to paying more on every purchase you make in the Bay Area? You gotta be kidding me.
Well … I guess Wiener is an enthusiast for leaving us the poorer off while he skedaddles to Washington.
We’ve had years of an ever increasing and accelerating San Francisco cost of living crisis.
Let’s add more and more regressive sales taxes so the Poors can bail out financial mismanagement and corruption.
And while we’re at it, as mentioned by marcos, let’s add to the value of the office building owners.
Oh … and the self-serving unions. AFSCME Local 3993 primary mission is to make sure the gang maxes out on pensions and benefits.
You and I will continuously bleed these sales taxes by a thousand purchases in The City.
The rich don’t care.
BART’s General Manager, Robert Powers rakes in 500K a year all in.
Why does he still have a job presiding over the total collapse of BART?
The tax fixation is most pathetic, all driven by headcount, not governmental responsiveness to an abandoned electorate.
The only tax increases I’m supporting are ones that tax the rich and directly redistribute it to working people, bypassing the corrupt self serving bureaucracy.
We’re at a point in the collapse of the empire where the crabs are clambering all over one another and us to get theirs before the music stops.
BART likes to present itself as the backbone of Bay Area mobility, but it rarely pauses to examine the weight it places on the very riders who keep it alive. Each time ridership surges, the agency is quick to bask in the glow of the numbers, celebrating the crowds while sidestepping the problems those crowds endure.
Transparency remains the system’s ghost—often mentioned, rarely seen.
And give it a few weeks: the next funding request will almost certainly appear, wrapped in the familiar language of urgency and “future improvements,” yet somehow still vague enough to leave riders wondering what, exactly, they’re being asked to bankroll this time.
This has got to be peek Bay Area: Hollering Oligarchs!(tm) and cheering for a regressive measure like this at the same time.
A signature gatherer in SF asked me to sign the petition for this measure by telling me that it would “Save BART” for the working people. When I pointed out that the sales tax is a regressive tax that would fall harder on working people, he was silent. This is how people end up voting against their own interests.
So not only are the transit agencies so inept they can’t fund themselves properly, a tax on people who don’t even use it is so unpopular they had to stuff ballots just to force it on people in Santa Clara county that don’t even have a functioning rail system(and no, vta is not a real rail system). We all know what’s going to happen; against public outcry, it’ll mysteriously pass, but all the jargon about accountability will be a lie and within the first three years they’ll just stop doing any real audits as they still fail to fund it properly.
All faith in Dems ability to govern is basically lost.
There’s no organized opposition. If you feel so strongly, feel free to start one.