Fares, violent crime rising, ridership declining at political, dysfunctional agency
Blog note: this opinion piece references a grand jury report.
BART’s new inspector general will have a tough challenge unraveling the transit system’s financial and operational dysfunction that includes declining ridership, increasing violent crime and long-term budget shortfalls.
The question is whether the district’s board will let her do her job.
Harriet Richardson, former Palo Alto city auditor, will be the first inspector general of the transit agency, which began service nearly 47 years ago and is scheduled to start running trains to north San Jose late this year. She starts work Aug. 5 and will have a $1 million annual budget.
BART officials never wanted an inspector general auditing and investigating their work. But the new position was forced on them as part of a legislative deal under which BART receives $1.1 billion from Bay Area bridge toll increases.
Unfortunately, she’s not independent. Under the deal, Richardson, who has also managed audits for Berkeley and San Francisco, was appointed by the governor from a list of three names submitted by the BART board. And she can be fired at any time by a vote of six of the nine board members and the approval of the governor.
Her challenge will be to maintain a wall of separation so she can provide objective analysis that doesn’t bend to the whim of the highly political board and district management.
District officials have repeatedly put the interests of the transit agency’s labor unions ahead of those of riders and taxpayers, most notably with costly labor agreements in 2013 and 2016 that short-changed the long-term fiscal health of the agency. As a result, the district faces operating shortfalls of $30 million to $60 million in each of the next seven years.
Meanwhile, a recent damning Alameda County Civil Grand Jury report highlights steadily declining ridership since 2016 despite the region’s booming economy and clogged highways; plummeting rider satisfaction surveys; ongoing fare evasion that costs the district at least $25 million a year; and violent crime that has more than doubled since 2014.
It’s against that backdrop that the BART board in June voted to once again increase fares at the start of 2020 and every two years after that through 2026 — apparently oblivious to basic economic price-demand principles.
They could get away with it a decade ago, when there were fewer options, but today there are serious alternatives — including telecommuting, ride-hailing and, for some commutes, scooter rentals. Rising BART fares and dirty, crime-ridden stations and trains make Uber and Lyft look better by comparison.
And then there’s the system itself. Over its first four decades, BART officials failed to set aside adequate funds for capital replacement, leading to the discovery about five years ago of a $9.6 billion need for new equipment.
In 2016, they went to voters in Alameda County, Contra Costa and San Francisco seeking approval of a $3.5 billion bond measure and claiming that the district would do its part by devoting $1.8 billion from operating expenses. Once voters approved Measure RR, the district promptly reneged on its part of the bargain.
To obtain voter approval, BART officials deceived voters about how much property taxes would increase to pay off the bonds on the ballot and waged a political campaign from within the district. A bend-the-rules and win-at-any-cost mentality turned publicly funded staff members into political operatives.
It’s time for change. Fortunately, General Manager Grace Crunican, who was at the helm during the labor giveaways of 2013 and 2016, and perpetuated the bond measure disinformation campaign, just retired, providing the board an opportunity to hire someone who will run the agency with a less-political and more-fiscally responsible approach.
The change at the top happens to coincide with the hiring of the new inspector general. The position was created at the insistence of state Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, who threatened to otherwise oppose Regional Measure 3, the Bay Area toll-hike plan that voters approved in 2018.
Glazer, an outspoken critic of the transit system, said this week he was encouraged that new BART Board President Bevan Dufty reached out to him during the selection of the new inspector general — and that he seems to appreciate the potential value of the position.
In that new job, Richardson has an opportunity to cast much-needed sunshine on an otherwise politically manipulative transit agency.
The strength of her backbone and the willingness of BART directors to listen to her will be key to ensuring that clean, safe trains run on time at a price riders and taxpayers can afford.
July 11, 2019
The Mercury-News
By Daniel Borenstein
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