Bay Area legislator proposes combining all 27 local public transit agencies

San Francisco Chronicle | Megan Fan Munce

A Bay Area legislator proposed legislation Wednesday to combine all of the region’s 27 public transit agencies into one in the wake of continuing financial challenges to public transportation.

State Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Fremont, amended an existing bill to ask the California State Transportation Agency to come up with a plan to consolidate the public transit agencies across all nine Bay Area counties. The new language replaces legislation that would have created a state program to install and maintain free electric vehicle service equipment at rest stops.

“Here’s the reality: it does not make sense to anyone to have 27 different public transportation agencies in nine Bay Area counties,” Wahab said. “The goal is we need an independent agency to be able to look at, where are the gaps, how can we streamline, how can we make it more efficient?”

Wahab’s proposal has no specific details or deadline, instead simply asking CalSTA to “develop a plan to consolidate all transit agencies that are located within the geographic jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission is a regional agency that runs the Clipper card program and coordinates how transit agencies respond to earthquakes, among other duties. But individual agencies aren’t explicitly required to follow MTC policy. In a December report, MTC staff noted that making policy is “inherently challenging” given that it requires consensus among over two dozen individual operators.

In 2021, the commission’s Blue Ribbon Transit Recovery Task Force published a Bay Area Transit Transformation Plan laying out a three-year plan for attracting riders back to public transit. The plan’s action items include synchronizing schedule changes across transit operators and standardizing maps. Rebecca Long, MTC’s director of legislation and public affairs, said the commission did not provide any input on Wahab’s legislation but said it was dedicated to advancing policies that would attract more riders and improve their experience on public transportation.

The idea of consolidating the 27 agencies in some form has been floated for well over a decade. In 2007, MTC, Caltrain, BART and the California High-Speed Rail Authority commissioned a report on improving the Bay Area’s passenger rail network and noted consolidation could lead to better coordination on schedules, fares and procurement. Five years later, two graduate students at UC Berkeley conducted a study interviewing local transit officials and found most supported some type of consolidation — such as merging all of the operators that move people in and out of San Francisco — but not combining into just one agency.

Consolidation has gained increased support as the Bay Area’s public transit agencies struggle to cope with a steep decline in ridership during the pandemic.

Since 2020, transit agencies have been fighting an uphill battle to regain ridership, with some agencies having more success than others. Muni had recovered about 70% of its pre-pandemic ridership as of September, while BART’s November numbers were only 43% of what they were in 2019.

Instead, transit agencies have relied on federal and state money to avoid service cuts. Over the summer, state lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom reached a deal to provide $5.1 billion to California transit agencies over the next several years.

In MTC polling conducted in October, 55% of respondents designated merging BART and Caltrain as a priority. Just over 60% said creating one regional agency responsible for setting fares, coordinating service schedules and creating consistent maps was a priority.

That same month, BART Board President Janice Li called for the agency to have “real conversations” about system consolidation given their financial struggles, though BART is not actively considering consolidation at this time, according to BART spokesperson Alicia Trost.

“BART and the Bay Area Transit agencies are focused on working with the MTC to implement the Transformation Action Plan to make Bay Area transit easier to use,” Trost said in a statement. “BART specifically is focused on improving safety, cleanliness, and reliability.”

Spokespersons for BART, Oakland-based AC Transit and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority said they had not reviewed the legislation before it was proposed. Wahab said she’d spoken to “a number of agencies” about her proposal, but did not name any specifically.

BART and AC Transit said their respective boards of directors would review the legislation before taking a stance. But VTA said it would be requesting its board to oppose the legislation due to the lack of outreach and concerns that consolidation could disrupt transit service.

“There have been many attempts to consolidate the numerous transit operators in the Bay Area over the years.  None have been successful.  There are real, practical reasons for the system as it has evolved,” VTA said in a statement. “Safe, affordable transit service is a challenge that will not be solved by some potential consolidation.  It would replace local decision-making regarding service planning, scheduling and fare structure with centralized planning far removed from local concerns.”

While Wahab’s current legislation calls for all 27 agencies to be consolidated, several other alternatives have been raised in the past. A 2021 report by Seamless Bay Area, a nonprofit advocating for transit reform, examined the benefits of total consolidation while also proposing options such as increasing MTC’s authority over transit fares and schedules or designating a lead agency among the existing transit operators.

The report noted total consolidation could pose issues given agencies’ different labor contracts — a concern also identified by the 2007 rail report and the 2013 UC Berkeley study.

Ian Griffiths, Seamless Bay Area’s policy director, said the group had an informational conversation with Wahab several months ago but was not consulted on the exact language of the legislation. If the bill moves forward, Griffiths said legislators should consider amending it to allow CalSTA to explore different scenarios beyond total consolidation and to clarify what the agency should prioritize in its decision-making — be it efficiency, customer service, service expansion or more.

As of now, Griffiths said policy makers lack detailed research into exactly how total consolidation could happen or how it would impact public transit in the Bay Area.

“There have been a number of studies that have pointed in the direction of a lot of benefits, but a more concrete study that outlines how to actually get it done and what the full cost and what the full benefits are would be valuable,” he said. “We don’t have the appropriate level of analysis that would give us comfort that it would surely improve our key challenges.”

Wahab’s legislation, SB397, is scheduled to be heard by the Senate’s Transportation Committee on Tuesday.

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