Caltrain – California Globe

California Transit Agencies Cost Taxpayers $10 Billion Per Year – And They Want More

October 14, 2025 7:00 amOctober 14, 2025 8:38 am

By Marc Joffe and Athan Joshi California transit agencies required over $10 billion of taxpayer funds to provide service and maintain their capital plant in Fiscal Year 2023. This is the key finding of our analysis of data from 85...

Farebox Recovery: Free is Not Good Enough

January 26, 2023 11:10 amJanuary 26, 2023 11:25 am

There is not a single public transit system in the United States that earns enough money in fares to cover its expenses. In fact, the systems with the highest “farebox recovery ratio” – which is the percentage of the annual...

Are Wasteful California Rail Projects Falling Out of Fashion?

January 24, 2023 9:59 amJanuary 26, 2023 1:22 pm

Recent action at the state and federal level may bode ill for three costly projects being pursued by San Francisco Bay Area transit agencies. In the face of declining population and historically low transit ridership, the agencies are trying to...