OAKLAND — Beginning Jan. 1 next year, BART riders will see a 50-cent surcharge for paper tickets, but the agency’s governing board also expanded the discount extended to youth.
Currently, only children between the ages of 5 and 12 are eligible for the 62.5 percent discount. BART’s board reduced the discount to 50 percent of the standard price, but increased the age of young people eligible to 18. It approved the fare changes on Thursday in an effort to drum up additional revenue in the face of declining ridership.
Earlier this year, BART was facing an operating budget shortfall of between $25 million and $35 million. BART had been considering starting trains an hour later in the morning and reducing discounts for seniors and people with disabilities.
But a new state transportation bill turned out to be a boon for the agency, delivering an extra $16 million beyond what BART had anticipated and allowing it to stave off more drastic measures. The paper surcharge is expected to generate an additional $5.6 million, though the youth discount expansion is expected to result in a $1.4 million cost, depending on how many people sign up for the discount.
BART board President Rebecca Saltzman said any fare increase is “not ideal,” but palatable as the agency seeks to move more customers to plastic Clipper cards. Like many of her colleagues, she lauded the expansion of the youth discount.
“It makes a lot of sense, and it will help families get around,” she said.
All fares will increase by 2.7 percent on Jan. 1, 2018 as part of a biennial inflation-based fare increase. Revenues from the increase are dedicated to capital improvements.
In addition to the fare changes, BART’s board also approved a $1.92 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1, a 5.5 percent increase from last year. BART is allocating just over half, or $997.7 million, to capital improvements. That’s a 12 percent increase over the past year.
