Governor Newsom signed legislation extending a $590 million bridge loan to BART, Muni, AC Transit, and Caltrain on Thursday to avert doomsday-scenario service cuts that would have begun this summer. This will help keep Bay Area transit on track, leading towards a November election where long-term transit funding is expected to go before voters.
“This emergency loan is a critical band-aid. It holds off disastrous transit cuts until long-term, significant funding can come through from the Connect Bay Area measure,” said Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who championed the loan along with Senator Jesse Arreguin (D-Berkeley), in a joint statement. “We spent much of the past year negotiating this loan with regional stakeholders and the Governor, and I’m immensely proud that we got it over the finish line.”
Although the loan wasn’t as much as advocates hoped for, many are now cautiously optimistic about the coming election and the effort to save transit.
“This is a great first step along the path toward fully funding our regional transit system and averting a traffic catastrophe,” said Sara K. Barz, long-time transit advocate and a rep on the San Francisco County Transportation Authority Citizens Advisory Council. “We need so much more money to protect our transit systems, but I thank Gov Newsom and state lawmakers for extending this bridge loan.”
“Transit riders and our allies put in the work and made this happen, and we are all going to need to work even harder to collect the 200,000 signatures from voters needed to get the long-term funding solution on the ballot this November,” said the Transbay Coalition’s Carter Lavin.
That work continues in earnest. To get involved, click here.