The Bay Area Rapid Transit system faces potential collapse as ridership remains less than half of pre-pandemic levels, forcing officials to consider drastic cuts including closing 15 stations and ending service at 9 p.m. The agency's $400 million annual deficit has pushed directors to propose a November sales tax ballot measure to avoid what they call "eye-popping" reductions.

Before COVID-19, BART relied primarily on fare revenue rather than government subsidies, making it particularly vulnerable when ridership plummeted from 388,910 daily exits in January 2020 to just 170,543 this January. The slow recovery of San Francisco's downtown office market, where about a third of space remains vacant, has compounded the crisis as remote work culture takes hold in the tech-centric region.

Proposed cuts include laying off a quarter of the workforce, raising fares and parking fees, and shrinking the system back toward its 1972 footprint. Critics dismiss the contingency plan as a scare tactic, but officials warn these are desperate times that could trigger a downward spiral killing the entire system. The proposed sales tax would support not just BART but also Caltrain and local bus networks across five Bay Area counties, though some argue the agency should first control expenses by renegotiating labor contracts and cutting administrative costs.