KRON 4: California officials announce $386M for BART, MUNI
The Bay Area’s largest transit agencies are about to get a financial boost to help them recover from the pandemic and hopefully encourage commuters to come back.
As part of the recently passed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, BART and the San Francisco MTA will receive $386 million in federal funding.
The money will be used to increase staffing and make improvements such as fixing or replacing escalators, reopening bathrooms and finishing station renovations.
California senator Alex Padilla say that as the country emerges from the coronavirus pandemic, public transportation will play an important role.
“As we are on the verge of further re-openings, people coming back to work. tourism coming back, the baseball season,” Senator Padilla said “People taking public transit to the games… we want to make sure that service levels and staffing we want to make sure that staffing and quality is there for people who ride public transit.”
The San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Agency also say that they will use the funding to fill nearly 1000 vacant job openings.
“If you are interested in coming to work in any capacity at the MTA or BART or a Bay Area transit agency,” SFMTA Director Jeffrey Tumlin said. “We need you.”
San Francisco Mayor London Breed said she hopes the improvements will encourage commuters to return to public transit and come back to work in the city.
“I just want to say to those folks that are wondering when they should return to work, return to work now,” Breed said. “Return to work now. return to work today. Get on BART get on Muni. Use our various means of transportation. “
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