By Jose Navarro, MBA | The Navarro Report
September 2026
SAN DIEGO. On October 1, a monthly transit pass in San Diego goes from $72 to $85. A one-way fare rises from $2.50 to $3.00. The pass increase is the first in 17 years. Riders will be told that the extra money keeps buses running. It will not come close.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, a draft planning scenario for the Metropolitan Transit System would eliminate 33 of its 95 bus routes and cut service on 29 more. Trolley frequency would fall on all four lines. About 21 percent of riders would lose their service entirely, and 36 percent would wait longer. Roughly 300 operator and mechanic positions would be eliminated through layoffs or attrition. The scenario looks ahead to fiscal year 2030, when annual deficits are projected between $100 million and $150 million.
Those figures are a draft, not a decision. Detailed proposals are expected in November and December, public workshops in January, and a board vote possibly next spring. That schedule is the opportunity. San Diegans have several months to ask the questions a lender or an auditor would ask before anything is cut.
Start with the arithmetic. MTS operates on about $470 million a year, and fares supply roughly $81 million of it, or 17 percent. The fare increase is projected to raise between $9 million and $14 million. Against a gap of $100 million to $150 million, that closes somewhere between 6 and 14 percent of the problem. The scenario also shows that moving $50 million from capital projects to operations would trim the 2030 gap from $141 million to $91 million. That is a one-time fix, borrowed from assets meant to prevent the next shortfall.
The causes are not mysterious. Agency statements cite rising workforce costs, higher operating expenses, flat sales tax revenue, and limited local funding. Slow ridership recovery after the pandemic and disappointing TransNet sales tax receipts have made it worse. None of this is anyone’s scandal. It is a structural mismatch, and it deserves a structural answer.
The two answers on the table are a state bailout and a local sales tax measure, possibly on the 2028 ballot. Both are plausible. Neither is guaranteed, and both ask taxpayers to trust an agency whose route-by-route performance the public has not been shown. Voters are being asked to decide the price of service before they know what the service is.
Three steps are feasible now, and none requires waiting for the vote.
First, publish route-level data before the board acts. Every route should have a public page showing boardings, cost per boarding, and the share of riders who have no nearby alternative. The Union-Tribune reports that 3 percent of riders have no alternative at all. They should be identifiable, and protected first.
Second, attach a service guarantee to any tax measure. Voters should see in the ballot language a minimum service standard, such as frequency on core corridors, and an independent annual audit. A tax that funds “transit” in general invites suspicion. A tax that funds a specific level of service, with an outside check, earns trust.
Third, tie any request for state money to performance conditions the agency itself proposes. Sacramento is far more likely to help a system that shows its books and commits to targets than one that arrives with a list of threatened routes as leverage.
I have spent more than two decades as a financial controller, and I have never seen a budget improve because the people affected were shown the answer only after it was chosen. Transit is how thousands of San Diegans get to jobs, classes, and clinics. The region can decide what it wants to fund, and pay for it. It should make that choice in daylight, with the numbers in hand, while the cuts are still a draft.
Sources
OB Rag, Is San Diego’s Mass Transit System On the Verge of Collapse?
KPBS, Fare increases of up to 40% may be coming for MTS and NCTD transit riders
MTS, Fare Changes Take Effect October 1, 2026
MTS approves budget for next year as financial crisis looms
Jose E. Navarro, MBA, is a financial controller and founder of The Navarro Report, a public finance and government accountability publication based in San Diego, California. He has more than two decades of experience in public finance, nonprofit management, and government contract compliance.
Contact: jose@navarro-report.com | 850-291-3175