Politics
Bay Area transit systems can’t afford to park the bus
OAKLAND, California — Thousands of soccer fans from around the world will funnel around the windy San Francisco Bay area by train, bus, and light rail to watch the United States take on Bosnia and Herzegovina in an elimination game at Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium. But operators of the region’s interlocking mass transit systems are more likely to be concerned with the opinion of local riders than visiting ones.
In November, voters across San Francisco Bay Area counties will vote on a ballot measure that serves as something of an existential political referendum on the sometimes maligned but widely utilized public networks that knit together one of the United States’ most transit-dependent regions.
The measure would increase local sales-tax rates by up to a full percent to provide a stable funding source for BART, Muni, Caltrain and AC Transit, and the San Francisco Bay Ferry — all of which have faced lower ridership and declining fare revenues since the COVID-19 pandemic. Should it fail, transit agencies have warned of dramatic cuts to service that could lead to less ridership, even less fare revenue, and the end of the system altogether.
The Connect Bay Area campaign behind the ballot measure is already working overtime to convince voters that they do in fact hold a deep and abiding love for public buses, trains and boats, embarking on what local press has referred to as a “charm offensive,” through transit-sponsored speed dating, anime festivals, and even a 1980s prom-themed party at a train station east of San Francisco.
The campaign did not schedule the World Cup match but is hoping the high-profile encounter involving the U.S. national team will serve as a very public test of the systems’ function and ability to remind both regular and infrequent users of their value.
“It’s an opportunity to remind people of what public transit means on a large scale,” said Jeff Cretan, a spokesperson for the ballot-measure campaign funded largely by a coalition of business groups and labor unions. “You can’t welcome 100,000 people if you don’t have a way to get them around — these big, celebratory events just don’t happen if we don’t have public transit.”
Even though only two of its remnant nations, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, are still competing in the World Cup, the former Yugoslavia continues to punch well above its weight in global soccer. Though the region accounts for barely 0.2 percent of the world’s population, players with roots from there make up 7.5 percent of those who reached the round of 32, including former U.S. captain Christian Pulisic, who is of Croatian descent.
Our White House correspondent Sophia Cai, a member of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, has been covering World Cup politics in regular video dispatches for our sister publication “Bild.”
Here’s her latest report explaining why President Donald Trump has yet to attend a World Cup match, and how he keeps up from the White House.
LONDON — Unexpected halftime entertainment for the England-DR Congo match was provided by Reform UK. The right-wing party that polls show would win a general election (but does not yet have enough MPs to field a soccer team) chose the moment to unveil its AI policy thinking.
England was losing as MP Danny Kruger opened with “I can’t believe you’re all here” — and announced the need for a Patriotic Compact on AI to a sparsely filled room.
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