BART officials had hoped their $500 million connector to Oakland International Airport would be a money maker — but instead it has wound up costing the financially beleaguered transit agency $860,000 in the past two years, as ridership has dropped below the break-even point.

“We didn’t anticipate Uber and Lyft and the others, and that’s hurting us,” said BART spokesman Jim Allison.

Oakland International reports that the number of airline passengers taking ride-hailing services to and from the airport totaled more than 11 percent in January — up from 7 percent in July.

With the competition, ridership on BART’s connector has been dropping below the 2,800 rides a day needed to cover the line’s $6.1 million annual operating costs.

That wasn’t always the case. In the months following its November 2014 opening, the line was averaging 3,200 daily riders — or about 400 over the break-even point.

No more. For the past three months, ridership has been down an average of 11 percent over the same time a year earlier.

“The feeling is that while taking BART may be a good deal for solo travelers, for families and groups of people, the ride-shares are more affordable,” said Robert Raburn, vice president of the BART Board of Directors, whose district includes the line.

The explanation for the decline appears to be a combination of cost and convenience.

Case in point: A solo traveler taking BART from Walnut Creek to the airport needs to buy a ticket to the Coliseum Station for $3.85 and pay an additional $6 for the ride on the connector to the airport, for a total of $9.85. That’s for a ride with two transfers — one at MacArthur Station in Oakland, and another at the Coliseum.

For a family of four, the hassle is just the same — and the bill is $39.40.

“It’s the latest chapter in a long, ugly history of the line,” said Raburn, who was never a fan of the connector.

When it was proposed, the cost of the 3.2-mile elevated tram line was put at about $134 million. By the time work began in 2010, the cost had risen to about $500 million — requiring BART to issue $110 million in bonds to pay for it.

Despite the growing costs, the project was propelled forward because it was seen as a boon for the airport and a job creator in the midst of the post-2008 economic crash.

Now, however, it’s a headache for BART — and another red line in the system’s looming $477 million budget deficit over the next decade.

Berkeley brawl: Berkeley authorities have a long history of dealing with demonstrators confronting police — but Saturday’s rumble between pro- and anti-President Trump demonstrators was a bit different, in part because the two sides were more interested in fighting each other than the cops.

“They came with pipes. They came with 2-by-4s. They came with 2-by-4s loaded up with nails. They came with helmets and body armor. They came with the intent to fight,” said city spokesman Matthai Chakko.

And fight they did, with some of the combatants going to the sidelines to be treated by paramedics who were on hand, “and then they went back again,” Chakko said.

One fighter who went back in after being treated came back out again — this time to be arrested on suspicion of assault. He was one of 10 people taken into custody.

As with the riot that shut down the speaking engagement of right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley last month — where campus police were the ones on the front lines — city police for the most part stayed on the sidelines Saturday and made arrests only when they thought it was safe to do so.

“It was a crying shame that these people were allowed to have at it with each other like that,” said former Berkeley Peace and Justice Commissioner Phoebe Sorgen, who was one of the peaceable demonstrators who witnessed the slugfest.

The police tactics raised the question of whether city officials ordered them in advance to stand down. “Absolutely not,” Chakko said.

The cops won praise from Mayor Jesse Arreguin, who as a councilman raised questions about the police use of tear gas during Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2014. This time, he said, “they did a very good job under difficult circumstances.”

And likely, there will be more to come.

Immigrant rights: One of the behind-the-scenes losers in the fight to fund new positions in the San Francisco public defender’s office to help immigrants facing deportation may be Francisco Ugarte, husband of new District Nine Supervisor Hillary Ronen.

Ugarte works in Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s office as an immigrant specialist, making $131,896 a year.

Had Adachi won his budget tug-of-war with Mayor Ed Lee, 10 attorneys and seven staffers would have been hired to fight what is expected to be a growing number of deportations.

The proposed unit would have been overseen by a new chief deputy earning up to $209,000 a year.

In the end, Lee funded just three positions — and no new manager.

Adachi confirmed that Ugarte probably would have been interviewed for the manager’s job, “but it’s an issue we don’t have now because we are not going to have a manager.”