Why losing BART would be a catastrophe for the Bay Area

By Ciara Lopez, Berkeley | 3/14/2023

Re: “Could the Bay Area lose BART?” (Special Report, SFChronicle.com, March 13): Among the more than 160,000 daily users of BART are working-class people who do not have the privilege of working from home, including students like myself. We depend on BART and decreasing service and increasing fares will be disastrous. 

Fare increases will not resolve the problem; instead, it will create another one: a transit death spiral. As the story says, fare increases could lead to decreasing in ridership and service cuts. BART needs to prioritize finding revenue from the state and other outside sources to avoid a transit death spiral.

Public transportation is a necessary service, and we must find funding sources for BART that are sustainable and keep trains running for working-class people who depend on them.