Bart Hosting First-Ever Telephone Town Hall Meeting on Budget

Photo credit: Noah Berger / BART / MTC

By Bay City News Service

Customers will be able to ask questions about BART’s proposed fiscal year 2016 budget during the agency’s first-ever telephone town hall meeting Thursday night, according to BART officials.

The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. and is accessible by calling (855) 269-4484 or by signing up online beforehand. Spanish-speaking customers can call in at (888) 400-9342.

Customers who sign up early at https://tthm.wufoo.com/forms/bart-proposed-budget-teletownhall-signup/ will
get a call from BART that connects them to the meeting and will have some priority over those who call in.

BART’s fiscal year 2016 budget includes a proposed 3.4 percent inflation-based fare increase to help pay for new train cars, a new maintenance facility and a new train control system, according to BART officials.

The agency’s priorities for spending the money in the nearly $1.6 billion combined capital and operating budget for fiscal year 2016 include increasing passenger traffic and improving the system’s cleanliness and how often trains are on time, BART officials said.

A webcast of the meeting will allow residents to watch the meeting live and ask a question in writing. The web address for the webcast is http://cast.teletownhall.us/web_client/?id=BART.

BART will still hold its official public meeting on the budget at the agency’s board of directors meeting at 5 p.m. on May 28.

Thursday night’s town hall comes a day after BART had several service disruptions, most notably one that lasted several hours after a 10-inch gap in the tracks was found Wednesday morning between the Civic Center and 16th Street Mission stations in San Francisco.