San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge has become the city’s latest ‘doom loop’ victim – with commuter traffic down 30 percent compared with pre-pandemic levels.
The once-bustling California city is now characterized by abandoned high street stores and struggling hotels, in large part due to rocketing crime rates and a sprawling homeless population plagued by fentanyl addiction.
Recent figures reveal how cash flow via the city’s main artery – Golden Gate Bridge – is drying up too.
The bridge’s annual net revenue of around $145 million from tolls accounts for 60 percent of the district’s revenues, and this is used to subsidize its transit services.
Peak commuter traffic on Golden Gate Bridge – from 5am until 9am on weekdays – accounted for a large chunk of the district’s pre-Covid toll revenues.
But this is now down 30 percent according to the general manager of the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District agency, Denis Mulligan.
Peak commuter traffic on Golden Gate Bridge is down 30 percent this year compared with pre-pandemic levels, according to the general manager of the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District agency Denis Mulligan
Thousands of homeless people populate the streets of San Francisco, while its economy stagnates and struggles to recover from the pandemic
Fentanyl addiction is rife in the west coast city, plaguing its ginormous homeless population. This, along with rising crime rates, has caused financial ruin in the once-bustling city
‘We had 70 percent less cars on the bridge, and that’s how we pay the bulk of our bills,’ Mulligan told the San Francisco Chronicle.
According to the official figures provided on the district’s website, overall traffic is down by almost one-fifth – 19 percent – over the last 12 months compared with the same period pre-pandemic.
An estimated 16,283,301 vehicles crossed the southbound tolls in the year up to June 2023 – or around 44,611 each day.
This marks a dramatic decrease from 20,001,670 crossings during the most recent 12-month period – the equivalent of 55,000 daily toll-payers.
The outlook for the financial future of the district also looks bleak, with it facing a $423 million operating shortfall through 2028 because of reduced income from the Golden Gate Bridge toll, according to it’s five-year financial projection.
Written by the District’s Board of Directors, the gloomy model notes how ‘even if Bridge traffic were to return to pre-pandemic levels, the District’s deficit is still projected to be $177 million’.
This comes despite a gradual inflation of the toll price to its current cost of $8.80 for a one-time payment – a 10 percent rise from its $8.00 pre-pandemic price.
Bridge tolls account for 60 percent of the Golden Gate district’s revenues, and they are used to subsidize its transit service.
Dire scenes now characterize the west coast city, including abandoned stores, streets overtaken by the homeless and drug-addled, and theft so rampant that even candy is locked away.
San Francisco’s once bustling Union Square and downtown area is a shadow of its former self, with dozens of high street stores shutting their doors for good due to the scourge of rising crime holding customers back.
The historic Flood Building, a survivor of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, stands largely empty: Gap has gone along with nearly every other business in the property with the exception of a tired branch of Dr. Martens and an Urban Outfitters store offering 70 per cent discounts.
Convention bookers are avoiding San Francisco due to homelessness, leading to even more problems for hotels in a city where tourism numbers are down by 16 percent over pre-pandemic numbers.
There were 26.2 million visitors in 2019, compared with 21.9 million last year.
Recent figures reveal how cash flow via the city’s main artery – Golden Gate Bridge – is drying up along with its high street retail income and dwindling tourist numbers
A family with two young children navigates its way through the filth and squalor at the junction of Jones and Eddy Streets in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District
Meanwhile, hotel revenues were 23 percent lower than pre-covid levels in April 2023 and appear to have stagnated, according to hospitality data firm STR.
Big companies are also leaving en masse, causing office vacancies to reach a record high of 31 percent in May, enough space for 92,000 workers.
In April, Salesforce said it will leave its eponymous 30-story Salesforce East building in downtown, where around 1,000 staff had worked before the pandemic.
Leaders estimate the situation will contribute to a budget shortfall of $1.3 billion in five years. The decline in property tax revenue alone could cost nearly $200 million per year, according to a worst-case scenario drawn up by the city’s chief accountant.
DailyMail
