BART:
Backbone of the Bay?!

In the late 1940s and 1950s, the Bay Area was experiencing one of the largest suburban migrations in U.S. history. Families ran into new tract-home suburbs and were pretty much entirely dependent on cars. The Bay Bridge was gridlocked daily... something had to give.

By 1950, the Bay Area's population had passed 2.6 million, and it was projected to double in just the next few years. For this reason, in 1951, a Joint Army-Navy Board first proposed a trains-bay railway tube system. The California Legislature approved the BART Commission in 1957. Originally, all five Bay Area counties were supposed to be included, but after years of political issues, the original vision was narrowed down to only three counties - Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco. In 1962, voters were asked to fund it... ...that went over well.

The 1962 bond measure authorized $792 Million in funding. By completion, BART's total cost had doubled to $1.6 Billion - mainly due to complexity, inflation, and the completely underestimated scope. This cost overrun was a political controversy for years, and is still a factor in today's financial crisis.

Funding primarily came from three sources: local property taxes, federal grants, and farebox revenue. Of this, about 20% was federal grants, 20% property taxes, and 50% farebox revenue. Unfortunately, the actual farebox revenue received could not keep up with BART's growing demand.

Today, fares only cover about 30% of operating costs. The other 70% comes mainly from property taxes, state funds, and federal grants. Every homeowner in a BART county pays higher property taxes due to BART's existence - even if they just use a car and have never boarded a BART train in their life.

A $1.6B infrastructure project's costs and benefits aren't exactly distributed equally. Instead, they're concentrated based on race, power, and location.

BART is a special district, which means it was created by state legislation but governed independently of city and county governments directly by a nine-member Board of Directors directly elected by voters. In 2016, voters approved a ballot measure called Measure RR - a $3.5 billion property-tax carried bond with over a 70% approval rate. It's currently one of the strongest supported mandates for public transport infrastructure in US history.

Besides that, though, the government supports BART in two other ways: in 2025, the California Legislature enacted Senate Bill 63 - authorizing a 14-year regional sales tax measure for the November 2026 ballot. If it passes, BART gets an estimated $310M annually starting FY28. In addition, the Federal Transit Administration provides Capital Investment Grants, safety oversight, and formula funds. BART has received over $3 billion in federal funding since 2000. Besides this, though, BART is mainly run by its Board of Directors, NOT by the state or federal Government (unlike many other public transit systems).

I thought this would be interesting to show: train positions are interpolated from BART's public ETD API. Yes, it's another map! What a shocker!