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Committee adopts BLA amendments and continues BART–SFMTA FastPass and feeder agreements
Summary
The committee discussed two retroactive transit agreements with BART—the FastPass reimbursement and a feeder-payment agreement—adopted budget analyst amendments (including lowering a FastPass cap) and continued final action to give staff time to re-notice the amended items.
The Budget & Finance Committee reviewed two agreements between the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) and the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART): a FastPass reimbursement agreement (SFMTA pays BART for FastPass trips made inside San Francisco) and a feeder agreement (BART pays SFMTA for feeder trips). SFMTA Director of Transportation Ed Ryskin and SFMTA staff described the terms, proposed retroactivity and the rationale for differing contract terms and lengths.
SFMTA presented a proposed FastPass reimbursement rate increase from $1.02 to $1.19 per trip and proposed retroactive coverage back to January 2010; the feeder agreement was described as voluntary and structured differently, with a term through June 2020. The Budget and Legislative Analyst recommended formula corrections to the feeder agreement and asked the committee to reduce the FastPass cap from $14,000,000 to $10,500,000. Committee members raised parity concerns—SFMTA payments to BART are linked to BART fare increases while BART—s payments to SFMTA are tied to CPI/ridership—and requested greater symmetry or explicit protections for the city.
After extended questioning and public comment, the committee adopted the analyst—s recommended amendments (including the corrected feeder formula and a reduced FastPass cap) and agreed to continue the items to the call of the chair to allow re-noticing with the amendments and further negotiation. Committee members said they were sympathetic to regional coordination goals but expressed discomfort with retroactive increases and with the degree to which BART fare decisions affect SFMTA operating costs.
The committee did not vote final approval on the agreements; it adopted amendments for re-noticing and continued the items to allow additional staff work and to ensure parity and fiscal protections for the city.
