OAKLAND — Despite crush-loads of passengers during peak commute times, the number of people riding BART is actually falling, forcing the transit agency to begin tough conversations about how to make up for lost revenue.

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26-story housing highrise eyed in downtown San Jose After six years of growth, staff anticipated a similar increase in the number of riders during the 2016-2017 fiscal year, which began July 1. Instead, the agency is reporting that ridership through December was 5.2 percent below what it projected. Weekend trips took the hardest hit, coming in at 9 percent lower than projected, compared with 4.2 percent for weekday trips.

In January this year, for example, weekday trips were down a little more than 4 percent, and weekend trips were down slightly more than 2 percent, compared with the same month last year. Ridership figures vary month by month, but BART staff said they are seeing a decline in the total number of riders opting to take the trains.

Weekend ridership figures first fell below 2015 numbers in February last year, and weekday ridership started to fall in August, according to BART’s monthly ridership reports.

Coupled with higher-than-anticipated non-employee costs and sluggish sales tax revenue, staff said the agency is already facing a nearly $5 million deficit for the first half of the fiscal year, and expects its operating revenues will come in $15 million to $25 million below what it had budgeted. As staff looks to craft a budget for the coming fiscal year, the outlook is even more grim, with an operating shortfall of $25 million to $35 million.

Already, the agency has put a hiring freeze in place and asked each department to cut the amount of money it spends on consultants by 10 percent, said Carter Mau, the agency’s assistant general manager of administration and budgets. That might help BART fill the gap left in lost revenues, but going into next year, Mau said the board would have to consider other options to generate revenue or reduce costs.

He suggested increasing the base fare, or the minimum the agency charges customers to ride any distance, as well as reviewing the discounts it doles out to seniors, people with disabilities and youths. Another option the board could consider is cutting its 4 a.m. service and opening the system at 5 a.m. instead, or reducing service on some lines, he said.

For the most part, board directors asked staff to consider every other possible source of generating revenue or cutting expenses. At its annual workshop last month, board members said they would rather see efforts made to reduce fare evasion, allow companies to advertise more, implement automated trains, modify the daily parking fee or charge tech shuttles to park at stations.

Cutting service would set off a “horrible spiral,” said board President Rebecca Saltzman.

“Clearly, we will have to make some hard decisions this year,” she said. “Reducing our service would be a really big mistake. Our biggest driver of revenues is our fare revenues. If we reduce service, we will likely reduce riders, and we will have less fare revenue.”

But director Thomas Blalock urged his colleagues to consider every option, while others urged the agency to first find ways to cut costs.

“Let’s not throw any baby out with the bath waters,” he said.

Mau said staff would begin polling riders this spring to assess which options are most palatable for passengers.

It’s unclear what is driving the declines, but at a November board meeting, Paul Oversier, BART’s assistant general manager of operations, attributed the dip to an overcrowded and aging system.

“If you ride during rush-hour, it’s not a pleasant experience,” Oversier said. “There is just physically not a lot of room to accommodate any additional people. So, the question becomes, how many people are we driving off because they are not satisfied with the onboard environment they are experiencing?”

The move comes at a time when customer satisfaction with BART is at a 20-year low. Driving the dissatisfaction is the screeching noise of BART wheels grating against the tracks, the lack of available seats and constant breakdowns of elevators at stations, according to a BART survey.

The board recently agreed to tear out seats to increase capacity on its trains, with a particular focus on the transbay trains, which regularly pass up commuters at downtown Oakland and San Francisco stations during the rush-hour commute. Oversier also said riders should expect some relief when the agency’s new fleet begins rolling out, which will allow BART to run longer trains with roomier cars.