There is a natural tendency to peer backward through rose-colored glasses. Yes, the world was burning and falling apart in 1968, too. But the news came with the Chronicle in the morning and the Examiner in the afternoon. In the evening, when Walter Cronkite told you " And that's the way it is," that's the way it was. That isn't the way it is anymore.
With just days remaining until the end of the legislative session, the Governor's Department of Finance informed lawmakers it will not be finalizing a critical bridge loan to prevent serious service cuts to BART, Muni, AC Transit, and other Bay Area public transit operators next year. Not authorizing the loan now could lead to quick service cuts by major Bay Area transit systems. Senators Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Jesse Arreguin (D-Oakland) have been working for months to try to finalize loan terms.
Thanks to the hard work of advocates, a $750 million loan was put into the state budget so that Muni, BART, Caltrain, and AC Transit can continue to fund operations. The idea is to give these agencies a way to bridge their funding shortfalls until a regional measure can go before the voters next year. However, now that loan is in jeopardy.
The loan included in a budget deal between Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Legislature earlier this summer was designed as a bridge to keep BART, San Francisco's Muni, AC Transit in the East Bay and Caltrain on the Peninsula afloat through 2026. The hope was that by then, lawmakers could persuade voters to back a long-term funding source, likely through a regional sales tax measure.
