Facing budget difficulties in the upcoming fiscal year, three Bay Area agencies will be raising fares on July 1. Agencies include Muni in San Francisco, AC Transit in the East Bay, and Caltrain.
For the last several years, Muni, AC Transit, and Caltrain held off fare hikes due to the pandemic relief funds and the desire of maintaining ridership after a sharp decline since the pandemic social distancing restrictions. For Muni, this is the second phase of fare hike post-COVID since the first phase in January. Meanwhile, BART has been raising fares for the last few years as part of long standing policy.
In addition to budgetary needs, many agencies find fares necessary to improve public safety onboard transit. Rather than skipping fares, Bay Area agencies encourage low-income riders to participate in the Clipper Start program, where qualified riders receive a 50% discount on regular adult one-way fares across the Bay Area.
This month 25 years ago, Muni opened an extension of the F-Market historic streetcar from Market Street to the Fisherman’s Wharf along the Embarcadero. Before the extension opened, the F line, which debuted in 1995, operated between the Castro and the Transbay Terminal on the surface of Market Street. For nearly 30 years, the F line has been a moving tribute to the streetcar systems that once dotted across the United States. Although not as recognizable an icon as the cable cars, it’s an essential, functional, and affordable form of transit for both tourists and residents.
The development of a historic streetcar line in San Francisco dates back to the 1970s, with the help of community activists, ambitious urban planners, and transit fans. Decades earlier, during the post-World War II era, San Francisco witnessed the destruction of its extensive street railway system and the construction of freeways to support fast automobile travel from the suburbs. Regardless of their productivity, high ridership streetcar lines like the Muni’s B-Geary and the Key System from the East Bay were transitioned to buses in the 1950s so that tracks could be removed to make room for cars. Even with strong voter support for the cable cars, the iconic system was reduced to half its size in that decade. This allowed some of the streets the cable cars ran on to be converted into one-way streets to speed up traffic flow. While BART was proposed during that period, the high-speed space-age trains were designed to align with the freeway-first transportation agenda and support suburban growth. As BART became a de facto replacement for the Key System, the Geary corridor has relied on buses ever since, despite many plans for BART to serve that area.
As there are no other crossover tracks except at Chinatown Station, the entire subway will be closed for the repair. During this period, Muni will resume operation of the KT line, as it was before the Central Subway opened. Trains from Bay View and Mission Bay will continue on the N line along the waterfront and then interline with the K line at Embarcadero Station.
The T line shuttle bus will operate between Chinatown and 4th & King Station, running on 3rd Street (to Chinatown) and 4th Street (to 4th & King). This will provide additional service alongside the 30-Stockton and 45-Union/Stockton bus routes on 3rd and 4th Streets. However, the T shuttle will stop adjacent to the T Line platform at 4th Street, while the 30 and 45 stop on Townsend Street, a block away from the Muni Metro platform.
This weekend, the NBA All-Star events will be held in the Bay Area, along with the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco’s Chinatown. These events will bring tens of thousands into San Francisco and help boost the local economy, which has been struggling since the COVID reopening.
Many of the venues for this weekend’s events are accessible from the Muni Metro T-Third Line. To promote transit usage, Muni will offer free rides for everyone on all lines except the cable cars on Saturday and Sunday. For those planning to attend events at Chase Center, the game ticket is also valid for rides on Muni. Attendees are encouraged to use regional transit, including BART, Caltrain, and ferries, to reach Downtown San Francisco.
T Third route map through event area.
Many of the NBA All-Star games will be held at Chase Center. Muni Metro T-Third stops in front of Chase Center and connects with BART at Powell Station. There’s a short walk involved with the BART to Muni transfer but it’s completely underground. Muni will operate additional rail shuttles (signed S Shuttle) between Chinatown and UCSF/Chase Center. For Caltrain riders, exit at 4th & King Station and either transfer to T-Third, or walk south for almost a mile (15 to 20 minute walk) to Chase Center.
Muni will also operate the 78X bus from the 16th Street/Mission BART station to Chase Center, providing additional service along the 22-Fillmore route to Mission Bay on 16th Street.
During the weekend, NBA All Star concerts will take place at Pier 48, located half a mile north of Chase Center and just across McCovey Cove from Oracle Park. Mission Rock Station is the nearest stop to the venue on the T-Third Line, and it’s within walking distance from Caltrain’s 4th & King Station. It’s important to note that BART and Caltrain will end service at regular times.
The NBA Crossover event will be held at the Moscone Center, located a third of a mile south of Market Street, a short walk from BART’s Montgomery or Powell Station. On the T-Third Line, the nearest stop is Yerba Buena/Moscone Station, just one block south of Howard Street. Howard Street will be closed to traffic between 3rd and 4th Streets. Fans taking Caltrain can walk four blocks north from 4th & King Station to the convention center or transfer to Muni’s T-Third Line.
Earlier in the day during the weekend, a street fair will be held on Grant Street in Chinatown, between California and Broadway.
In addition to San Francisco, some of the NBA All-Star events will be held at Oakland Arena, where the Warriors played before the Chase Center opened in 2019. Oakland Arena is accessible from BART’s Coliseum Station.
Looking back, 2024 has been a year of significant change. The “face” of both BART and Caltrain transformed as BART fully retired its two-door legacy fleet, and Caltrain introduced electric trainsets while retiring its gallery cars. In Seattle, the Link system added a new line connecting Redmond and Bellevue and expanded northward from Northgate to Lynnwood, replacing many express buses serving Seattle from Snohomish County. In Los Angeles, Metro recently introduced new metro cars made by CRRC for the B and D lines, as the first phase of D line extensions further west is nearly complete. Many transit agencies saw improved ridership as more workers returned to the office, and more services were restored as additional transit workers were hired.
BART formally retired its legacy rail car in 2024, which served as BART’s icon for decades.
Next year, both Muni and BART will raise fares, and the tolls for Bay Area Toll Authority bridges will increase by $1. BART will begin installing the CBTC system, which will enhance capacity but requires service adjustments. As a result, Millbrae riders will need to transfer between trains at SFO in the evening. Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit will open Petaluma North Station soon after the new year and extend northward to Windsor sometime in 2025.
In Sacramento, the SmaRT Ride microtransit will be transformed into a different program with fewer vehicles, a reduced budget, and limited eligibility.
In Seattle, Link Line 2 is expected to connect South Bellevue to Seattle across Lake Washington once the I-90 track re-work, which delayed the project, is complete.
LA Metro is also expected to open the LAX Metro Center and the first phase of the D Line extension to Wilshire/La Cienega sometime next year. The D Line extension is significant due to the high bus ridership on Wilshire and the speed improvements a new subway line will bring.
However, 2025 is worrisome, given the increasingly chaotic political climate and the hostility towards transit among elected and unelected decision-makers. Bay Area transit agencies will also face a fiscal cliff as ridership remains slow to return and one-time pandemic-era grants run out. Over the last few decades, Bay Area transit have seen fiscal cliffs with economic recessions (drop in tax revenues, and falling ridership with higher unemployment), but no recession has such a deep and lasting impact on transit service as COVID. Development in autonomous vehicles, backed by wealthy Silicon Valley tech bros, could impact the public’s attitude towards transit. Even if the technology is perfected, these vehicles can’t assist senior and disabled riders and do little to address traffic congestion due to the inefficiency of single-occupancy vehicles.
