The Golden Gate Bridge is down on its luck and grateful for any loose change anyone can spare.
The transit agency that runs the 65-year-old bridge is so short of cash, not unlike many transit agencies around the country, that in September it raised tolls from US$3 to US$5. That was not enough, so last week the agency began slashing commuter bus routes and ferry services.
Now, still short hundreds of millions of dollars because of a troubled economy and unexpected security expenses after 9/11, the agency is asking for public handouts to keep it afloat.
Big bridge. No money. Please help.
"If someone wants to drop US$2 in a box to enjoy that beautiful bridge, we'll take it," said Maureen Middlebrook, a vice president of the bridge's board of directors. "We will take money wherever we can get it."
Contribution boxes will be erected near the sidewalk entrances to the main 1.9km suspension span once the winter rains end and tourism picks up. The solicitations will be modeled after those at some museums and national parks and might include a suggested minimum donation, an amount not yet determined.
"We will have a sign with information about the bridge, saying, 'Leave us your dollar or yen, or whatever, we appreciate it,"' said Mary Currie, director of public information for the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, the agency that operates the bridge. For the last three decades, the district has also run ferries between San Francisco and Marin County and bus services in Marin, Sonoma, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties.
Middlebrook described the plan for donations, which has not yet been widely promoted, as "an opportunity for people to share their caring" for the bridge. But not everyone is as charitable. Joseph V. Blue, another of the district's 19 directors, likened the effort to panhandling. "That is humiliating," he said.
Blue, a real estate investor and newcomer to the board, said the handouts were "like putting a Band-Aid on cancer." He also criticized another money-raising idea under consideration: charging pedestrians and bicyclists to cross the bridge. That proposal was shelved last month, at least for the time being, after an outcry from the city's formidable bicycle lobby.
"We are not talking about just any bridge, we are talking about the greatest bridge in the world," Blue said. "I am dumbfounded that we got to this point."
While the financial crisis has been hard for some San Franciscans to fathom, the bridge's problems are unusual only in their severity and notoriety. Transit agencies across the country are having tough times.
Elsewhere in the Bay Area, ridership on Bay Area Rapid Transit trains has declined for 15 months in a row, leading to fare increases and new parking fees. The Valley Transportation Agency in Santa Clara County is cutting jobs and services because of a huge drop in state sales taxes and a US$167 million deficit.
The Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is projecting a US$50 million deficit next year, with cuts in services and fare increases under consideration. Ridership, which had been growing 8 percent a year, rose 3 percent last year, said Steven Taubenkibel, a spokesman for the authority. "We are reviewing everything under the sun to reduce costs," Taubenkibel said.
In New York City, tunnel and bridge traffic across the Hudson River began to fall last year even before Sept. 11, with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey reporting 4.4 million fewer eastbound vehicles than in 2000. The Metropolitan Transit Authority, meanwhile, which runs buses, subways and railroads in the city and its suburbs, expects a budget deficit of US$1 billion next year.
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