America’s Subways and Buses Face Deep Service Cuts as Federal Money Ends

In the early months of 2020, it was business as usual at California’s Bay Area Rapid Transit District. Trains were running more or less on time, bringing commuters from across the region to their desks at companies such as Twitter, Salesforce and Uber Technologies, with their fares covering about 70% of the system’s operating budget.

But as the Covid pandemic took hold and companies told workers to stay home, ridership plunged as much as 93%, spurring service reductions and station closures. Trains were soon plastered with instructions on social distancing, and while managers used the downtime for track work, revenue all but evaporated. “In those first few months we were surprised by how deep the ridership drop was and how long it lasted,” says BART General Manager Bob Powers.