The Bay Area's Transit Dilemma: Too Many Agencies, Not Enough Riders

As public transit agencies across the U.S. grapple with budget holes, safety concerns, and ongoing economic uncertainty, a number of policymakers, advocates and officials in the San Francisco Bay Area are calling for the region’s numerous and disjointed systems to join together for better interoperability. Bus and rail operators must coordinate pandemic response plans and reduce barriers to access, or riders will suffer, they say.

“The Covid-19 crisis has laid bare the ways in which our current system puts modes in competition with each other—with serious consequences for access, equity, and the financial stability of the network,” Laura Tolkoff, a regional planning policy director at the think tank SPUR, wrote in a letter to regional transportation leaders on Sunday. “The failure to coordinate service now could leave the Bay Area’s riders with significantly degraded service and access.”