Way to go! You – along with tens of thousands of Californians and a diverse coalition of over 120 organizations – spoke out in support of transit and won. For the past several months we rallied, made over 5,000 calls to elected officials, wrote more than 50,000 emails, dropped banners, and did all sorts of things to elevate our demand that the California state budget support transit.
We got our message across and today, the legislature and Governor announced their budget agreement. Instead of the initial proposal which would have cut transit funding by $1.1B, we blocked the cuts AND won an additional $750M loan to Bay Area transit agencies so they can get through 2026 without needing to make drastic service cuts.
While California transit service still faces an uncertain future in 2027 and beyond, today’s victory will keep our communities moving and buys us time to secure long-lasting improvements to our transit system.
Whether you sent an email, called your elected representatives, put up flyers, donated, shared the alerts, or did something else to help speak out for transit, this victory wouldn’t have been possible without the work you and everyone else put in. Thank you for being part of this big team effort.
This victory stops massive cuts in the near-term to the transit service our communities depend on, and secures important short-term funding. But we still have lots of work to do to put Bay Area transit on sturdy footing for the long-term and make service as frequent, reliable, affordable, and accessible as possible.
We still need to roll up our sleeves to ensure that there is ongoing funding for transit operations and capital, and for affordable housing near transit in the state’s “Cap and Invest” program that will be finalized in the coming weeks.
Additionally, we need to protect the long-term health of our transit systems by passing a regional funding measure that covers as much of the Bay Area as possible, raises as much money for transit as possible, and ensures people can seamlessly travel throughout the region on transit. That measure gets finalized this summer and will go to voters next year. There’s a big rally in San Mateo County about the regional measure next week – come join the fun!
And of course, there is the ongoing work to make sure bus stops have benches, and all the other local efforts that Transbay Coalition wages to ensure that transportation in the Bay Area is easy, sustainable, affordable, and accessible. So if you’re able to chip in to help strengthen and sustain our ability to keep fighting for (and winning) improvements to transit in the Bay Area, we’d greatly appreciate it!
In the meantime, whenever you’re on the bus, train, or ferry this week, take pride in knowing that the effort put in by you and your fellow transit supporters made a difference.
Let’s keep it going!