Pages 18 & 19 seem to reveal that the bridge does eat up most of it’s fares.
I’m not sure if that’s Hollywood Movie Studio accounting, or straight business accounting.
Let’s recall that the bridge paid for itself and repaid the cost of the bridge prior to the initial bonds being paid off. If in those days the bridge was generating enough profit to pay for operating expenses and pay off the cost of those bonds, why can’t it show a larger profit today?
My suggestion is that the bus fleet is the reason. The bridge and various modes of transportation are lumped into the Golden Gate district.
Look at the transportation costs related to fairs.
Then you see government grants. Is that slight of hand moving funds around from the bridge?
I’m not nearly as convinced the bridge eats up it’s total revenues, as the creators of this report seems to be.
http://goldengate.org/organization/documents/fy12-13-adoptedbudget.pdf
It’s impossible that the bridge eats up most of the funds, IMO. It is aging, but I still think that maintaining the thing should only cost a few tens of millions per year.