After a ton of negotiations, BART and their two largest unions agreed to a deal last Friday.

A 27-hour bargaining session finally led to a tentative contract between BART and three of its five unions Friday, ending nearly four months of negotiations and the threat of a commute-crippling strike.

Three of BART’s unions tentatively settled on four-year contracts that will save the transit district $100 million over the life of the contracts. BART officials had demanded that amount of savings to help relieve a projected $310 million deficit.

Representatives from BART and the unions declined to reveal details, saying they wanted to present them to their members first. But they include changes in work rules and caps on benefits, among other concessions. Union officials said the proposals would “keep the trains running” without any layoffs or pay cuts. (SF Chronicle 8/1/09)

However, the unions will still need to ratify these deals, but from indications from union leaders, that will happen. That being said, BART still faces huge problems. In June, ridership was down a whopping 9 percent in June, year over year. This shouldn’t surprise all that many people, as the recession has trimmed the number of commuters.  Yet in terms of BART’s bottom line, it is huge. It could take $27 Million out of their annual $642 million operating budget.

Fare increases have taken effect, but that isn’t sufficient to stem the tide of red ink.  And then of course, the lower costs of parking these days in some garages combined with those higher BART fares might encourage some to drive to work.  This, to put it mildly, would be bad.

So yes, the $100 million of concessions from the unions was important for BART’s continued health.  But, there is a lot of work left to do to reduce costs, or we’ll see more fare hikes in the future.