Car Free Happy Hour is tonight, folks!We head to Headlands Brewing in Berkeley, at 1280 Gilman Street, right on the Ohlone Greenway.
Lots of friendly folks interested in the same things you are. Come on out! 🚴♀️🚐
Huge thanks to AC Transit Board President Diane Shaw for her leadership and to the rest of the Board for coming together on this important issue. And thank you to all the community members who showed up. You made a difference!
The GM’s budget task force (President Shaw, VP McCalley and me) met six times in 2025 and we discussed dozens of ideas for how to increase efficiency, raise revenues and cut costs. Now is the time for management to act.
Yes, balancing the AC Transit budget will be difficult, but it’s not impossible. If voters are going to vote to raise their own taxes and riders are going to pay more for less service, we also need to do our part.
The AC Transit Board sent a strong and united message to management last night: we must demonstrate that we are taking our budget crisis seriously. The Board directed staff to come back with a draft budget that’s the same as last year while preserving service for riders.
Unanimous votes at the AC Transit Board are rare and send a strong message.
I went to France with my mom and her two friends in their 70s. The rental car place gave us an “upgrade” to a massive SUV. (All the reasonable small cars were rented.) We couldn’t fit in the narrow streets and kept having to back up and turn around. Mortifying.
Great results! Many folks showed up and spoke about containing costs without service cuts.
RESULT: unanimous vote for a motion from Chair Shaw directing management to bring a revision that keeps the budget flat from last year while fully maintaining service. That’s a saving of $22M. 1/x
Ouch. But no lies detected.
“Board members and management, do you want to actually improve this organization? Or are you content to simply oversee a managed decline?”
“Please do not move forward with fare increases or service cuts until stronger cost-saving measures have been clearly identified and publicly evaluated.”
The AC Transit board is looking at a draft budget tonight. Please see this email from a constituent.
“Please do not move forward with fare increases or service cuts until stronger cost-saving measures have been clearly identified and publicly evaluated.” 🔥
The above are just a few examples of actions we could take.
The AC Transit Board will discuss the budget tonight. The proposal currently includes another fare hike starting 7/1, but does not include other revenue generating or cost control strategies. actransit.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=...
TRUMP IS A MADMAN.
🧵Congress 202-224-3121
Find your Senators www.senate.gov
Find your Rep www.house.gov
"I'm [NAME] from [PLACE, ZIP]. I'm calling to urge the Senator/Rep to contact Adm. Correll & remind him that he has the same legal obligation as any soldier to refuse an illegal order from this Commander in Chief."
Contract language: The fifth absence equals oral warning and counseling, etc.
This is the contract language about absences.
The key performance indicator (KPI) goal is 14% unscheduled unavailability. We have not even come close to meeting this in the entire five years I’ve been on the board.
Good question and I don’t know the answer.
Screenshot of two canceled 52 buses
Sorry to everyone trying to catch an AC Transit bus last night. Did you know we have an “unscheduled unavailability” rate of 23%? Almost 1/4 of the people scheduled to work don’t come in.
Hey Bay Area, Car Free Happy Hour is Thursday, April 16 at Headlands Brewing in Berkeley. Come on out! All are welcome. 💃
Transit Measure endorsers. What’s wrong with this picture? 🤔
Me standing with a clipboard
Another day, another signature gathered to save transit! @connectbayarea.bsky.social
If you agree that AC Transit needs to do a better job managing our deficit without putting it entirely on the backs of bus riders, please come to an upcoming Board meeting and raise your voice. If we are going to ask voters to tax themselves this Nov, we must do our part to control expenses.
While other agencies have held their staff vacancy rate as high as 22%, our vacancy rate is only 7%. In other words, we continue to hire senior executives on down like there’s no deficit at all, knowing that labor is our biggest expense by far.
Prices at our Richmond parking lot have been $3 a day since 2005. We are losing money on this parking lot. Does this make any sense to you?
When I suggest we consider charging for parking at the lots we own (we are giving it away for free!) they say “that’s not going to solve our budget crisis.” In my opinion, every bit helps. Additional service cuts should be the last resort.
We’ve already cut bus service by 15% from pre-pandemic levels, without a hiring freeze, a travel ban, furloughs, revenue generation, or the typical measures that can be taken to address a budget deficit. More service cuts for riders are not the answer.
AC Transit board and staff, please stop saying the only solution to our budget crisis is additional service cuts.
All Bay Area transit agencies offer 50% OFF fares through the Clipper START program.
If you’re a CalFresh or Medi-Cal participant, 19-64 years old, you qualify automatically for Clipper START!
Start saving and apply today at clipperstartcard.com!
From the Small Victory Department:
The AC Transit board removed the requirement to possess a drivers license from the job description for the District Secretary.
I’ll continue confronting carbrain thinking whenever possible.
