Walters: BART wants sales tax increase, but its payrolls soared as ridership declined

Walters: BART wants sales tax increase, but its payrolls soared as ridership declined

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit five years ago, the state forced countless businesses to shut down and told millions of California workers to stay home. The abrupt interference with normalcy had many financial, social and political impacts. One was to slash ridership and fare revenues of public transit systems, particularly in the transit-dependent San Francisco Bay Area. The 27 Bay Area transit systems received $4.5 billion in federal funds, $5.…