How much revenue does BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) bring in on a normal commuter day?

The cost of each free-transit Spare the Air Day is $2.3 million. This figure includes costs to subsidize all the Bay Area public transit agencies (BART, Muni, AC Transit, Caltrain, and the ferry). I would guess that the cost to sponsor BART alone for a day would be around $1 million.

The other “catch” is what’s known as the farebox recovery rate—this is the percentage of operating costs covered by your ticket. BART in 2005 (last date I could find good numbers for) was 56%.

So the cost of sponsoring free rides may be higher than the actual cost of ridership. $1m sounds about right, but they may want to charge you $2m to cover all of their costs.