In California, if it has steel wheels that run on steel rails and is supposed to carry passengers, chances are it’s become a major fiscal headache. 

Case in point: The state’s high-speed rail project, infamous for its ongoing failures. Approved in 2008 by voters who expected it would be rolling in 2020 at the relative bargain cost of $33 billion, the “bullet train” rivals Boston’s “Big Dig” fiasco for the domestic infrastructure debacle trophy of the quarter millennium. 

It’s so far behind schedule and so far over budget, supporters have to talk about how a recent bit of minor headway is a “huge leap forward” and a “major milestone” that’s “paving the way for track-laying.” 

Meanwhile, BART, San Francisco’s 131-mile rapid-transit system that was once considered the standard of its type, is grinding toward a shaky future. 

Earlier this month, the New York Times said the Bay Area was considering the “unthinkable”: “Life Without BART.” 

Shortly before that story was published, BART approved an Alternative Service Plan, which would sharply curtail service. As many as 15 stations, or 25% of system track miles, are to be shut down next year. Train availability could be cut by 63%, fares will be increased from $4.98 to $6.38, service will end at 9 p.m. seven days a week, and the staff reduced by 1,200. 

BART has been racing toward a fiscal cliff for years. But it is not alone. Metrolink, COASTER, the San Diego commuter rail operated by the North County Transit District, the San Diego Metropolitan Transit Authority, which has 65 miles of rail, and the Los Angeles Metro are other notable regional rail systems in dangerous fiscal waters. 

Three years ago, the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies noted that while “bus service has improved and expanded … many of the state’s transit systems are struggling operationally and financially.” 

Both bus (72%) and rail (84%) ridership fell hard in April 2020 when pandemic panic was peaking, but rail recovered much more slowly. 

The UCLA researchers say that many transit agencies across the state simply would not have survived without federal pandemic relief dollars. California raked in a disproportionate pile of pandemic stimulus funding, with “transit systems in the Golden State” receiving 15.4% “of the nation’s combined transit stimulus dollars, while the state is home to less than 12% of the U.S. population.” 

The Los Angeles and San Francisco regions swallowed up almost $4.5 billion each.  

Even with the flood of taxpayers’ money, “the financial prospects for the Golden State’s transit agencies are mixed,” says the UCLA report. It’s arguable, in fact it’s a near certainty, that in many cases, the relief funds were misallocated. For instance, “BART allowed its operating expenses to grow by $228 million (34%),” says Randal O’Toole, a public policy analyst with the Thoreau Institute.

So, no, federal aid hasn’t worked.

“Despite the unprecedented federal assistance and the quick recovery of most other funding sources, many transit agencies still face or anticipate a fiscal cliff, particularly among large commuter and/or rail systems serving central business districts, where travel demand has been slow to return,” says the UCLA report. 

So why is this happening? Why are Golden State rail transit systems facing “financial uncertainties,” even though policymakers at all levels are in thrall to public transit and are obsessed with pairing it with affordable housing? 

One word answer: Ridership. Californians just aren’t as eager to hop on trains as they were before the pandemic, especially those whose patronage kept them rolling before the state was locked down in 2020.  

Again, we refer to the UCLA report: 

Commuter and other higher-income riders, by contrast, have been slower to return, both because of health concerns and because of changing patterns of telecommuting. Higher-income riders have more travel alternatives and are also more likely to be employed in jobs that allow them to work from home, at least on some days. In short, because of the pandemic, many higher-income transit riders have become former, or at least less frequent, transit riders. For many agencies, ‘once [commuter demand] dropped, it never came back.’ 
 

Without their fares, rail transit systems are going to struggle. They can’t continue to operate as if it’s 2019 (which, to its credit, BART, with its downsizing plan, seems to understand). They have to develop and follow models in which riders pay all, not just part, of the operating costs.

Locals can no longer regard their rail transit systems as “beloved” and find it “unthinkable” that they might one day no longer be the same institutions they cherished. The time for treating California’s massively wasteful rail projects like toys is over.

There is a good reason that no one rides stagecoaches anymore, and no amount of money will change that. California’s obscenely wasteful rail systems, spending huge amounts to carry fewer and fewer people, are going in the same direction. 

— Written by the I&I Editorial Board