How California is killing public transit in the East Bay

While the rest of the Bay Area saw its transit ridership increase or remain unchanged during the 2010s, Oakland-based AC Transit stood alone in losing riders. Despite Oakland’s population increasing by 10% in the past decade, fewer neighborhoods in Oakland have local bus service than they did 30 years ago. AC Transit continues to be so underfunded that service to the Berkeley Hills and much of southern Alameda County, all-night buses and more could disappear.

In the recent much-heralded state transit bailout, most funds went to BART and San Francisco’s Muni. AC Transit, meanwhile, which in November served a daily average of 133,000 weekday riders, is as essential to the East Bay as BART but received less funding ($32.5 million) than Marin County’s Golden Gate Transit ($41 million).

While the state bailout was historic and necessary, it continued the longstanding trend of underfunding the East Bay’s bus systems.

The urban East Bay is condensed and linear and BART runs along its center. Unlike San Franciscans, who pay one fare to go through the Market Street underground or Central Subway and transfer to a bus, East Bay riders pay both BART and AC Transit’s fare, making transit uncompetitive with driving, walking and now ride-sharing. This problem was identified back in 1972 when BART opened, yet the obvious solution, integrating BART and AC Transit’s operations and farebox, has yet to occur.

While San Francisco’s transit systems reap the benefits of sales tax gains from the East Bay workers transported to its downtown offices, AC Transit depends heavily on the property taxes where workers live. Given state restrictions on property tax increases thanks to Proposition 13, this has gradually killed funding.

AC Transit provides a tremendous service to the regional economy: Office-heavy San Francisco depends on AC Transit to feed people to BART stations and the Salesforce Transit Center. But being spread across separate counties, the system doesn’t get the funding it needs. And regional planners who must allocate funds across county lines at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission continue to overlook AC Transit in favor of BART and Muni.

So, here’s what needs to change if the East Bay is to do its part to reduce car traffic and hit statewide climate goals. 

Compared to trains, buses disproportionately depend on subsidies rather than fares. That’s why even when ridership was at its peak in the early 1990s, AC Transit was forced to make big service cuts. Most Bay Area and exurban, bedroom community counties don’t have general funds capable of providing the level of bus service demanded by job-heavy San Francisco and South Bay counties. State leaders in Sacramento should be dedicating more to bus systems, particularly in suburban and exurban communities that cannot fund their bus service with giant general budgets like those in San Francisco or Los Angeles.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, meanwhile, should stop ignoring AC Transit. Regional planners should draw up plans to not only improve and fund existing service and prevent widespread service cuts but also restore lines that have been discontinued throughout Alameda and western Contra Costa County, and Paratransit.

Compared to the visionary ideas of new rapid transit in San Jose and San Francisco, Oakland leaders have weak ideas on how to reduce car dependency and expand transit citywide.

New high-density communities without public transit like Brooklyn Basin in Oakland were planning failures by the Oakland City Council. East Bay city councils should learn from this mistake and mandate that dense new developments pay for bus passes and, if large enough, fund AC Transit to run service to these communities.

We have too many government agencies that don’t view AC Transit as their concern. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors should be as active in helping fund and guide AC Transit service as San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors is for Muni. The East Bay Regional Parks District should be funding the restoration of bus service to its parks rather than subsidizing free parking. Unlike in San Francisco, the Oakland City Council is apathetic toward its dwindling public transit with no apparent vision for the future. And the NIMBYism of Berkeley and the city of Alameda, which prevents changes that would make key bus routes faster than driving, kills AC Transit ridership.

Even with state bailout funds, if AC Transit does not increase funding by next year more bus lines will disappear and existing lines will decline in service. As work from home increases, we’re missing the moment to get people out of their cars to go grocery shopping, to school and do basic tasks in the urban East Bay. Every city council in the region should be screaming to the state Legislature to bail out AC Transit. Otherwise, the consequences will be more congestion and pollution as more neighborhoods built around transit become only accessible by car. 

Some degree of a transit agency merger is necessary — and a half-century overdue. Until AC Transit and BART stop competing with each other for fares, and East Bay governments continue to offer free public parking in most places, it will continue to be more economical to drive than take transit. But the East Bay was built for mass transit, not cars. Until the state, the MTC and local governments take seriously the unique funding issues of bus service, the decline of AC Transit will be the greatest climate catastrophe in the East Bay.

Darrell Owens is data analyst and advocate with East Bay Transit Riders Union.