{"id":213992,"date":"2026-03-11T00:49:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T00:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/213992\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T00:49:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T00:49:28","slug":"bart-riders-face-higher-costs-worse-commutes-if-stations-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/213992\/","title":{"rendered":"BART riders face higher costs, worse commutes if stations close"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Bay Area voters don\u2019t pass a regional sales tax<\/a> to fund BART in November, the agency will reduce service, cut its Red and Green lines, and close 15 of its 50 stations starting next July.<\/p>\n

While BART ridership is recovering, it remains far below pre-pandemic levels. Average daily ridership is roughly 40% of 2019 levels.<\/p>\n

Without the additional funding, the agency warns, it would need to make mass service cuts starting in January, with trains running every 30 minutes and service ending at 9 p.m. The agency also said that without the new tax revenue, it could completely cease operations within two years.<\/p>\n

The proposed station closures, which could begin in July 2027 and are subject to board approval, would largely amputate the system\u2019s outer edges, stranding riders in the East Bay exurbs and severing key transfers such as the link between BART and Caltrain at the Millbrae station.<\/p>\n

\"ABART says it could close 15 stations if voters don\u2019t approve a new sales tax in November. | Source: Isaac Ceja\/The Standard<\/p>\n

This would be a nightmare for both the agency and those who rely on BART to get to work, school, and social engagements. <\/p>\n

The Standard spoke with riders at the five busiest stations slated for potential closure<\/a>. Most hadn\u2019t heard that their lives could be upended in less than two years.<\/p>\n

Pittsburg\/Bay Point<\/p>\n

Pittsburg resident Shevette Phipps, 43, spends her workdays crisscrossing the Bay Area for her two jobs. As a substitute teacher and traveling nurse, she often doesn\u2019t know where she\u2019ll end up working in a given week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Without a car, and unable to pay for exorbitant taxi or rideshare fares, BART is not just her best option \u2014 it\u2019s her only way to travel to Brentwood, Oakley, San Francisco, Richmond, and other cities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI depend on it,\u201d she said, adding that she often catches the last train home after finishing a nursing shift at midnight. An Uber at that time could cost more than $100.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what, I\u2019m going to be working just [to afford] my transportation?\u201d<\/p>\n

Phipps didn\u2019t know that her home station, as well as 14 others, are subject to closure. After she was told, she expressed frustration that despite high state taxes and toll fares, BART is still so deep in the red.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t be missing money for no BART,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Dublin\/Pleasanton<\/p>\n

When Purna Sunkara moved across the country to the East Bay suburb of Dublin for a job as a cybersecurity consultant at Amazon, she was counting on BART to get to her office in San Francisco. She was aghast to hear that the Dublin\/Pleasanton station could close, calling it a \u201cshocker.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m questioning everything now,\u201d she said, adding that she would have to move if the station shut down.<\/p>\n

San Jose State student Sanaa Klamath said she\u2019d abandon BART altogether if the Dublin station closes.<\/p>\n

Klamath, 19, said she takes BART from North San Jose to Dublin twice a month to see her parents. Without the Dublin\/Pleasanton station, she\u2019d have to take the Altamont Corridor Express commuter rail between San Jose and Dublin, she said.<\/p>\n

\"ASanaa Klamath said she\u2019d stop taking BART if the Dublin\/Pleasanton station closes in 2027. | Source: Garrett Leahy\/The Standard<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just gonna make [BART] lose a lot more people,\u201d she said of the potential closures.<\/p>\n

She urged BART not to close the three stations at the eastern end of the Blue Line, and to at least keep the West Dublin station open, saying she has friends and family who commute from Dublin to San Francisco daily.<\/p>\n

Antioch<\/p>\n

Chris Mayorga lives in Menlo Park, which doesn\u2019t have a BART station, but the system plays a vital role in both his professional and family life. <\/p>\n

The construction worker uses the system every day to get to Antioch, where he visits his girlfriend and his 4-year-old son, and to job sites in San Francisco.\u00a0 Both Antioch and Millbrae \u2014 where he transfers between Caltrain and BART \u2014 are on the chopping block.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they were to take that away from me,\u201d he said, \u201cit would make things very difficult.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lacking a driver\u2019s license, Mayorga said, he would have to rely on rideshares, estimating that commuting and visiting family by Uber would cost about $100 \u2014 too expensive to sustain in the long term.<\/p>\n

\"PassengersPassengers ride the blue line BART train Friday between West Dublin and Castro Valley stations. Both could close if voters don\u2019t approve a regional sales tax in November. | Source: Garrett Leahy\/The StandardNorth Concord\/Martinez<\/p>\n

Darvon Payne, like most Americans, is worried about gas prices. Luckily for Payne, BART runs directly from North Concord\/Martinez to Oakland, where the 45-year-old works with unhoused people. But unluckily for him, his station could close.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to spend the gas money,\u201d he said. \u201cI just want a nice, smooth ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

The signature-gathering campaign for the regional sales tax began in January, and organizers frequently canvass in the East Bay. But Payne said he only heard about the potential station closures and BART\u2019s financial crisis when The Standard spoke with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvidently, the word is not out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Millbrae<\/p>\n

Plenty of people prefer not to drive. Nikki, 24, couldn\u2019t even if he wanted to: He is blind.<\/p>\n

Nikki, who declined to share his last name, called the potential Millbrae station closure a \u201ctravesty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ANikki, who is blind, called the potential closure of Millbrae station a \u201ctravesty.\u201d | Source: Garrett Leahy\/The Standard<\/p>\n

He relies on BART to visit friends in San Francisco two to three times a month. Without BART, he\u2019d have to transfer between Muni and SamTrans, which he said is less convenient, or resort to rideshares, which he said would cost roughly $30 each way.<\/p>\n

\u201cBART is always here. It\u2019s safe, it\u2019s dependable, it\u2019s reliable. And having that taken away would seriously be a problem,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Bay Area voters don\u2019t pass a regional sales tax to fund BART in November, the agency will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[3767,5448,332,5323,101,103,102,104,106,105,1967],"class_list":{"0":"post-213992","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-bart","9":"tag-caltrain","10":"tag-east-bay","11":"tag-public-transportation","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","14":"tag-san-francisco-news","15":"tag-sf","16":"tag-sf-headlines","17":"tag-sf-news","18":"tag-transportation"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}