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Wikipedia

Bay Area Rapid Transit

March 20, 2023

"BART" redirects here. For other uses, see BART (disambiguation).

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes and 131 miles (211 kilometers) of track, including a 9-mile (14 km) spur line running to Antioch, which uses diesel multiple-unit vehicles, and a 3-mile (4.8 km) automated guideway transit line serving the Oakland International Airport. With an average of 145,700 weekday passengers as of the third quarter of 2022 and 26,026,800 annual passengers in 2021, BART is the fifth-busiest heavy rail rapid transit system in the United States.

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)
A BART train approaching Walnut Creek in October 2022
Overview
LocaleSan Francisco Bay Area (Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties)
Transit type
Number of lines
  • 5 rapid transit lines (1 with diesel light rail extension)
  • 1 AGT line
Number of stations50 (7 planned/proposed)
Daily ridership145,700 (weekdays, Q3 2022)[1]
Annual ridership26,026,800 (2021)[2]
Chief executiveRobert Powers[3]
Headquarters2150 Webster Street
Oakland, California
Websitebart.gov
Operation
Began operationSeptember 11, 1972 (1972-09-11)
Operator(s)San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District
CharacterFully grade separated with at-grade, elevated and underground sections
Number of vehicles789 total, with 618 legacy cars and 171 new cars in service;[4] with 8 DMU vehicle sets (eBART);[5] and 4 AGT vehicle sets
Train length
  • 4–10 cars (710 feet (216 m) max)
  • 2-car married pair (DMUs)
  • 3 cars (AGT)
Headway15–30 mins (by line)[6]
Technical
System length131.4 mi (211.5 km)[5]
Track gauge
  • 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm), Indian gauge[5]
  • eBART: 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm), standard gauge[5]
Minimum radius of curvature120 m (394 ft)
ElectrificationThird rail, 1 kV DC[5][7]
Average speed35 mph (56 km/h)[5]
Top speed
  • 80 mph (130 km/h) (maximum)
  • 70 mph (110 km/h) (normal operations)[8][5]
System map

BART is operated by the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District which formed in 1957. The initial system opened in stages from 1972 to 1974. The system has been extended several times, most recently in 2020, when Milpitas and Berryessa/North San José stations opened as part of the under construction Silicon Valley BART extension in partnership with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA).[9]

Services

BART serves large portions of its three member counties – San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa – as well as smaller portions of San Mateo County and Santa Clara counties. The system has 50 stations: 22 in Alameda County, 12 in Contra Costa County, 8 in San Francisco, 6 in San Mateo County, and 2 in Santa Clara County. BART operates five named heavy rail services plus one separate automated guideway line. All of the heavy rail services run through Oakland, and all but the Orange Line cross the bay through the Transbay Tube to San Francisco. All five services run every day until 9 pm; only three services operate evenings after 9 pm. All stations are served during all service hours.[10] The eastern segment of the Yellow Line (between Antioch and the transfer platform east of Pittsburg/Bay Point) uses different rolling stock and is separated from the rest of the line.[11]

Unlike most other rapid transit systems, BART lines historically were not primarily referred by color names (although the colors used on maps have been constant since 1980) or other shorthand designations. The services are mainly identified on maps, schedules, and station signage by the names of their termini. However, the D and E class fleet displays line colors more prominently, and BART has begun to use color names in press releases and GTFS data.[12][13]

Color Route name First service Lines used Notes[14]
     Orange Line September 11, 1972 R, K, A, S Operates during all service hours.
     Yellow Line May 21, 1973 C, K, M, W, Y, E Operates during all service hours.
Daytime service ends at SFO; evening (after 9 pm) service ends at Millbrae.
Uses DMU vehicles (eBART) between Antioch and Pittsburg/Bay Point.
     Green Line September 16, 1974 S, A, M No evening (after 9 pm) service.
     Red Line April 19, 1976 R, K, M, W, Y No evening (after 9 pm) service.
     Blue Line May 10, 1997 L, A, M Operates during all service hours.
     Beige Line November 22, 2014 H Operates during all service hours.
Uses AGT vehicles.

Hours and frequencies

 
Map of evening (9pm–midnight) service

BART has elements of both traditional rapid transit (high-frequency urban service with close station spacing) and commuter rail/regional rail (lower-frequency suburban service with wider station spacing). Trains on each primary service run every 15 minutes on weekdays and every 30 minutes on evenings and weekends. (On Saturdays until 8 pm, Yellow Line service between Pittsburg/Bay Point and SFO runs every 15 minutes.) Segments served by multiple lines have higher frequencies, the busiest of which is the section between Daly City and West Oakland, which has around 16 trains per hour per direction at peak hours. The Beige Line runs "on demand", typically on headways of 10 minutes or less.[14]

The first inbound trains leave outer terminals around 5:00 am on weekdays, 6:00 am on Saturdays, and 8:00 am on Sundays and most holidays. (The previous 4:00 am weekday start time was changed to 5:00 am for a planned three years starting on February 11, 2019, to accommodate retrofitting of the Transbay Tube.)[13] The last trains of the service day leave their terminals around midnight; the final Yellow and Orange Line trains in both directions meet at MacArthur station, and the final Orange and Blue Line trains in the southbound direction meet at Bay Fair station, for guaranteed transfers. Two of the five rapid transit services (the Green and Red Lines) do not operate after 9 pm, though all stations are served at all service hours.[10]

Two different bus networks operated by regional transit agencies run during the overnight hours when BART is not operating. The All Nighter network provides basic overnight service to much of the Bay Area. Most BART stations are served (directly or within several blocks) by the All Nighter system except for the Antioch–Rockridge and Bay Fair–Dublin/Pleasanton segments plus Warm Springs/South Fremont station.[15] The Early Bird Express network provides service major BART stations between 3:50 am and 5:30 am to replace early-morning weekday service during the Transbay Tube retrofit project. Two San Francisco/Peninsula routes and seven Transbay routes run between a limited number of major BART stations, with the San Francisco/Peninsula and Transbay routes meeting at the Transbay Transit Center. The original Early Bird Express network introduced in February 2019, had fifteen routes, but some were eliminated later that year due to low ridership.[16][17][18]

Connecting services

 
AC Transit buses at San Leandro station

Intermodal connections to local, regional, and intercity transit – including bus, light rail, commuter rail, and intercity rail – are available across the BART system. Three Amtrak intercity rail services – the California Zephyr, Capitol Corridor, and San Joaquin – stop at Richmond station; the Capitol Corridor also stops at Oakland Coliseum station. (The Oakland – Jack London Square station and Emeryville station hubs, which are served by those three routes plus the Coast Starlight, are not located near BART stations.)[11] Amtrak Thruway service also stops at Dublin/Pleasanton station.[19] Transfer between BART and Caltrain commuter rail service is available at Millbrae station.[11]

BART and all lines of the Muni Metro light rail system share four stations (Embarcadero, Montgomery Street, Powell Street, and Civic Center/UN Plaza) in the Market Street Subway; connections are also available to three lines at Balboa Park station and one line at Glen Park station. Milpitas station provides a connection to the Orange Line of VTA Light Rail.[11]

BART is served by bus connections from regional and local transit agencies at all stations, most of which have dedicated off-street bus transfer areas. Many connecting routes (particularly in suburban areas) serve primarily as feeder routes to BART. Larger bus systems connecting to BART include Muni in San Francisco, AC Transit in the East Bay, SamTrans in San Mateo County, County Connection and Tri Delta Transit in eastern Contra Costa County, WestCAT in western Contra Costa County, WHEELS in the Tri-Valley, VTA in the Santa Clara Valley, and Golden Gate Transit. Smaller systems include Emery Go-Round in Emeryville, Commute.org on the Peninsula, San Leandro LINKS, Dumbarton Express, and Union City Transit. The Transbay Transit Center regional bus hub is located one block from Embarcadero and Montgomery stations.[19]

Several transit agencies offer limited commuter-oriented bus service from more distant cities to outlying BART stations; these include VINE from Napa County, Solano Express from Solano County, Rio Vista Delta Breeze, Stanislaus Regional Transit Authority from Stanislaus County, and San Joaquin RTD from Stockton. Many BART stations are also served by privately run employer and hospital shuttles, and privately run intercity buses stop at several stations.[19]

BART also runs directly to two of the three major Bay Area airports (San Francisco International Airport and Oakland International Airport) with service to San Jose International Airport provided by a VTA bus route available at Milpitas station.[19][11]

History

For broader coverage of this topic, see History of Bay Area Rapid Transit.

Origins, planning, and geographical coverage

Some of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system's current coverage area was once served by an electrified streetcar and suburban train system called the Key System. This early 20th-century system once had regular transbay traffic across the lower deck of the Bay Bridge, but the system was dismantled in the 1950s, with its last transbay crossing in 1958, and was superseded by highway travel. A 1950s study of traffic problems in the Bay Area concluded the most cost-effective solution for the Bay Area's traffic woes would be to form a transit district charged with the construction and operation of a new, high-speed rapid transit system linking the cities and suburbs.[20] Marvin E. Lewis, a San Francisco trial attorney and member of the city's board of supervisors spearheaded a grassroots movement to advance the idea of an alternative bay crossing and the possibility of regional transit network.[21]

Formal planning for BART began with the setting up in 1957 of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, a county-based special-purpose district body that governs the BART system. The district initially began with five members, all of which were projected to receive BART lines: Alameda County, Contra Costa County, the City and County of San Francisco, San Mateo County, and Marin County. Although invited to participate, Santa Clara County supervisors elected not to join BART due to their dissatisfaction that the peninsula line only stopped at Palo Alto initially, and that it interfered with suburban development in San Jose, preferring instead to concentrate on constructing freeways and expressways. Though the system expanded into Santa Clara County in 2020, it is still[when?] not a district member.[when?]

In 1962, San Mateo County supervisors voted to leave BART, saying their voters would be paying taxes to carry mainly Santa Clara County residents (presumably along I-280, SR 92, and SR 85).[22] The district-wide tax base was weakened by San Mateo's departure, forcing Marin County to withdraw a month later. Despite the fact that Marin had originally voted in favor of BART participation at the 88% level, its marginal tax base could not adequately absorb its share of BART's projected cost. Another important factor in Marin's withdrawal was an engineering controversy over the feasibility of running trains on the lower deck of the Golden Gate Bridge, an extension forecast as late as three decades after the rest of the BART system.[23][24][25] The withdrawals of Marin and San Mateo resulted in a downsizing of the original system plans, which would have had lines as far south as Palo Alto and northward past San Rafael. Voters in the three remaining participating counties approved the truncated system, with termini in Fremont, Richmond, Concord, and Daly City, in 1962.[26]

Construction of the system began in 1964, and included a number of major engineering challenges, including excavating subway tunnels in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley; constructing aerial structures throughout the Bay Area, particularly in Alameda and Contra Costa counties; tunneling through the Berkeley Hills on the Concord line; and lowering the system's centerpiece, the Transbay Tube connecting Oakland and San Francisco, into a trench dredged onto the floor of San Francisco Bay.[27] Like other transit systems of the same era, BART endeavored to connect outlying suburbs with job centers in Oakland and San Francisco by building lines that paralleled established commuting routes of the region's freeway system.[28] BART envisioned frequent local service, with headways as short as two minutes between trains through the Transbay Tube and six minutes on each individual line.[29]

Early years and train control problems

Passenger service began on September 11, 1972, initially just between MacArthur and Fremont. The rest of the system opened in stages, with the entire system opening in 1974 when the transbay service through the Transbay Tube began.[30] The new BART system was hailed as a major step forward in subway technology,[31] although questions were asked concerning the safety of the system[32] and the huge expenditures necessary for the construction of the network.[33] Ridership remained well below projected levels throughout the 1970s, and direct service from Daly City to Richmond and Fremont was not phased in until several years after the system opened.

Some of the early safety concerns appeared to be well founded when the system experienced a number of train-control failures in its first few years of operation. As early as 1969, before revenue service began, several BART engineers identified safety problems with the Automatic Train Control (ATC) system. The BART Board of Directors was dismissive of their concerns and retaliated by firing them.[34] Less than a month after the system's opening, on October 2, 1972, an ATC failure caused a train to run off the end of the elevated track at the terminal Fremont station and crash to the ground, injuring four people.[35][36] The "Fremont Flyer" led to a comprehensive redesign of the train controls and also resulted in multiple investigations being opened by the California State Senate, California Public Utilities Commission, and National Transportation Safety Board.[37] Hearings by the state legislature in 1974 into financial mismanagement at BART forced the General Manager to resign in May 1974, and the entire Board of Directors was replaced the same year when the legislature passed legislation leading to the election of a new Board and the end of appointed members.[38][39][40][41][42][43]

Extensions

Main article: Bay Area Rapid Transit expansion

Even before the BART system opened, planners projected several possible extensions. Although Marin County was left out of the original system, the 1970 Golden Gate Transportation Facilities Plan considered a tunnel under the Golden Gate or second deck on the bridge, but neither of these plans was pursued.[44] Over twenty years would pass before the first extensions to the BART system were completed to Colma and Pittsburg/Bay Point in 1996. An extension to Dublin/Pleasanton in 1997 added a fifth line to the system for the first time in BART's history. The system was expanded to San Francisco International Airport in 2003 and to Oakland International Airport via an automated guideway transit spur line in 2014.[45][46] eBART, an extension using diesel multiple units along conventional railroad infrastructure between Pittsburg/Bay Point and Antioch, opened on May 26, 2018. BART's most significant current extension project is the Silicon Valley BART extension. The first phase extended the Fremont line to Warm Springs/South Fremont in early 2017, and the second phase to Berryessa/North San José began service on June 13, 2020. The third phase to Santa Clara is contingent upon the allocation of funding as of May 2020, but is planned to be completed by 2030.[47]

Plans had long been floated for an extension from Dublin to Livermore, but the most recent proposal was rejected by the BART board in 2018.[48] Other plans have included an extension to Hercules, a line along the Interstate Highway 680 corridor, and a fourth set of rail tracks through Oakland.[needs update][49] At least four infill stations such as Irvington and Calaveras on existing lines have been proposed.[50] With the Transbay Tube nearing capacity, long-range plans included a new four-bore Transbay Tube beneath San Francisco Bay that would run parallel and south of the existing tunnel and emerge at the Transbay Transit Terminal to connect to Caltrain and the future California High-Speed Rail system. The four-bore tunnel would provide two tunnels for BART and two tunnels for conventional/high-speed rail. The BART system and conventional U.S. rail use different and incompatible rail gauges and different loading gauges.[5] In 2018, BART announced that a feasibility study for installing a second transbay crossing would commence the following year.[51] By 2019, the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority had joined with BART to study a multi-modal crossing, which could also allow Capitol Corridor and San Joaquin routes to serve San Francisco directly.[52]

System modernization

In 2007, BART stated its intention to improve non-peak (night and weekend) headways for each line to 15 minutes. The 20-minute headways at these times is a barrier to ridership.[53] In mid-2007, BART temporarily reversed its position, stating that the shortened wait times would likely not happen due to a $900,000 state revenue budget shortfall. Nevertheless, BART eventually confirmed the implementation of the plan by January 2008.[54] Continued budgetary problems halted the expanded non-peak service and returned off-peak headways to 20 minutes in 2009.[55]

In 2008, BART announced that it would install solar panels at two yards, maintenance facilities, and Orinda station[56] (the only station that receives enough amount of sunlight to justify installation cost).[56]

In 2012, the California Transportation Commission announced that they would provide funding for expanding BART facilities, through the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, in anticipation of the opening of the Silicon Valley Berryessa Extension. $50 million would go in part to improvements to the Hayward Maintenance Complex.[57]

In March 2019, BART announced that they would begin updating ticket add-fare machines inside the paid area to accept debit and credit cards for payment (for Clipper cards only).[58] In December 2020, BART completed the changeover to Clipper and stopped issuing magstripe paper tickets. Existing paper tickets remained valid.[59] In April 2021, BART began accepting Clipper cards on Apple Pay, Google Pay, and the Clipper app at all BART stations.[60]

During the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the BART equipment was mostly undamaged. A 2010 study[61] concluded that along with some Bay Area freeways, some of BART's overhead structures could collapse in a major earthquake, which has a significant probability of occurring within three decades.[62] Seismic retrofitting has been carried out since 2004 upon voter approval to address these deficiencies, especially in the Transbay Tube. BART projects that Transbay Tube retrofits are expected to be completed in 2023.[63][64]

Rolling stock

Main article: Bay Area Rapid Transit rolling stock

Car types

 
Side view of nine-car BART train made up of four C cars and five B cars.
 
Interior of a typical older mainline BART car

The mainline BART network operates five types of electric powered, self-propelled railcars. The older types, built between 1968 and 1996, totaled 669 cars, and have two sets of passenger doors on each side of the car. The newer two types, which are technologically incompatible with the older types, are in the process of manufacturing, delivery, and commissioning as of January 2023. The new cars are due to replace all older types and expanding the fleet for future extensions. They will all feature three sets of passenger doors on each side of the car to speed up passenger boarding.[65] BART trains have gangway connections, and passengers can move freely between cars.[66]

To run a typical peak morning commute, BART requires 579 cars. Of those, 535 are scheduled to be in active service; the others are used to build up four spare trains (used to maintain on-time service).[67][68]

The Beige Line uses a completely separate and independently operated fleet of cable car-based automated guideway transit vehicles. It uses four Cable Liner trains built by DCC Doppelmayr Cable Car, arranged as three-car sets, but the system can accommodate four-car trains in the future.

The eBART extension uses eight Stadler GTW diesel railcars.[69] The Stadler GTW vehicles are diesel multiple units, which operate over standard gauge tracks (as opposed to BART’s broad gauge).[70][71]

Current fleet
Lines Manufacturer Class Image Car numbers Qty. Built Notes
Main system Rohr A   1164–1276 59 1968–1975 To be replaced by the D and E cars.
B   1501–1913 380 1971–1975
Alstom C1   301–450 150 1987–1989
Alstom/Bombardier D   3001–3310 310 2012– Being delivered.
E   4001–4465 465
Oakland Airport Connector Doppelmayr Cable Liner   1.3–4.3 4 trains, 12 cars 2014 Automated guideway transit trainsets
eBART Stadler GTW   101–108 8 2016 Diesel multiple unit trainsets

Next-generation railcars

 
Interior of a new BART car

BART has ordered 775 new cars from Bombardier (which merged with Alstom during production):[72][73] 310 cab cars (D-cars, which like the older C-cars can be at any position in a train, although unlike C-cars, will not permit passenger movement between cars past the cab) and 465 non-cab cars (E-cars).[74][12] The new cars have three doors on each side (increased from the current two, to speed station stops), bike racks, 54 seats per car, and interior and exterior displays giving information.[12] The new cars are incompatible with all prior cars and must run in separate trains. The first test car was unveiled in April 2016.[70] The first cars were expected to be in service in December 2016, however, glitches and a failed CPUC inspection delayed introduction to January 19, 2018.[75][76][77]

Depots

The initial BART system included car storage and maintenance yards in Concord, Hayward, and Richmond, with an additional maintenance only (no car storage) yard in Oakland. The Daly City car storage and maintenance yard opened in December 1988.[24] The Beige Line uses the Doolittle Maintenance and Storage Facility. eBART vehicles use a facility in Antioch.

Fares

 
Two BART ticket machines at Embarcadero station in San Francisco. Both have been converted to Clipper card usage only. The machine on the left dispenses new Clipper cards and adds value to existing cards, while the machine on the right only adds value to existing cards.

Fare schedule

BART has distance-based fares, which requires riders to use faregates to both enter and exit, with a flat fare of $2.15 for trips under 6 miles (9.7 km). A surcharge is added for trips traveling through the Transbay Tube ($1.40), to/from Oakland International Airport ($6.70) or San Francisco International Airport ($4.95), and to/from San Mateo County ($1.45, except $1.25 for Daly City).[78][79]: 2–9  The maximum fare, including both airport surcharges and the Transbay surcharge, is $17.60; the maximum without surcharges (Antioch–Berryessa/​North San José) is $10.30.[78] As of June 2022, the average fare paid is $3.93.[80]

Because of the varied fares, it is possible to enter the system with enough stored value for a shorter trip, but not a longer trip. Passengers without sufficient fare to complete their journey must use an add-fare machine to add value in order to exit the station.[81] As of June 2022, entering and exiting at the same station incurs an "excursion fare" of $6.40 – significantly higher than many station-to-station fares.[81][82] This was originally introduced to allow people to tour the then-futuristic system; it was kept to discourage undesired behaviors such as tech bus riders using BART parking lots. The excursion fare has been criticized for negatively impacting riders who leave stations during service disruptions (although station agents can allow riders to exit without fare payment). As of December 2022, BART is working to implement a 30-minute "grace period" before the fare is charged.[83]

Unlike many other rapid transit systems, BART does not have weekly or monthly passes with unlimited rides.[84] The only discount provided to the general public is a 6.25% reduction when "high value tickets" (only available on Clipper cards with autoload) are purchased with fare values of $48 and $64. 50% discount is available to youth aged 5–18 (children age 4 and under ride free), and a 62.5% discount is provided to seniors and disabled people. The Clipper START program for low-income adults provides a 20% discount.[84] The San Francisco Muni and BART offer a combined monthly "A" Fast Pass, which allows unlimited rides on Muni services plus BART service within San Francisco.[84]

In August 2022, BART launched Clipper BayPass, a two year pilot program to examine the viability of a transit pass that is compatible with all the public transit agencies in the Bay Area. The program was initially made available to around 50,000 college students and affordable housing residents.[85][86]

Fare media

The primary fare media for BART is the Clipper card, which is used by most Bay Area transit agencies. Clipper is a contactless smart card; passengers tap in and out at card readers on faregates. Clipper cards in Apple Pay and Google Wallet electronic wallets can also be used.

 
A legacy BART ticket. The initial purchased fare is printed parallel to the magnetic strip, and the card's balance is printed on the left, updated at each exit.

BART's original fare system used paper-plastic-composite tickets with a magnetic stripe.[87] The tickets were sold by fare vending machines. When exiting, faregates read the magnetically-stored value on the card, encoded the new value with the fare subtracted, and printed the new value on the card. Tickets with no remaining value were retained by the machine rather than being returned.[88] The entire fare system was designed and built by IBM under a $7 million contract (equivalent to $35 million in 2021).[89] It was the third system with encoded-value magnetic stripe tickets in the US, following the Illinois Central Gulf commuter line in 1964 and PATCO in 1968.[90] Although tickets could be refilled at fare machines, riders often discarded tickets with small values remaining. BART formerly relied on unused ticket values on such discarded cards for additional revenue – as much as $9.9 million annually in 1999.[91]

Paper tickets stopped being sold in December 2020,[92] but can still be used.[81][93] However, due to supply chain shortages resulting in a lack of plastic Clipper cards, BART started issuing paper tickets again at the SFO station in October 2022.[94] These tickets cannot be refilled at any station in the BART system as no other vending machines are capable of accepting them.

In 2006, BART began piloting a smart card for fare payment called EZ Rider; this program was abandoned in 2010 in favor of a regional farecard.[95][96] In 2009, BART became one of the first five transit agencies to accept TransLink (later renamed Clipper) cards for fare payment[97] and began phasing out paper tickets, beginning with high-value discount tickets. As of December 2020, all BART ticket machines, except for add-fare machines inside of paid areas, have been converted to Clipper use only. New paper tickets are no longer issued, though existing paper tickets continue to be accepted at faregates.[59] A 50-cent surcharge per trip (25 cents for discounted fares) is applied to all journeys made on paper tickets.[98]

Ridership levels

For most of its history, BART's ridership has reflected the U.S. economy, growing modestly during periods of economic expansion and dropping slightly during recessions.[99] A major exception occurred in 1989 in the aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake, which severely damaged the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, causing its closure for a month. BART became the only direct route between the East Bay and San Francisco, resulting in a nearly 17% ridership jump for the 1990 fiscal year.[99] Ridership would not drop back to previous levels after the repair of the bridge until the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect the Bay Area in March 2020.

Between 2010 and 2015, BART ridership grew rapidly, mirroring strong economic growth in the Bay Area. In 2015, the system was carrying approximately 100,000 more passengers each day than it had five years earlier.[100] High gasoline prices also contributed to growth, pushing ridership to record levels during 2012, with the system recording five record ridership days in September and October 2012.[101]

After six straight years of expansion, ridership growth began to slow in late 2016, dropping by 1.7% in October 2016 from the prior year.[102] Although the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017, showed an average weekday ridership of 423,395, the second-highest in BART's history, this was a 2.3% drop from FY 2016.[99] Ridership continued to decline by approximately 3% per year between 2016 and 2019, mirroring a nationwide decline in mass transit ridership in the second half of the decade.[103] Some see this decline as linked to changes in commute patterns, the fall in gasoline prices since 2014, and competition from the private sector in the form of ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft.[104][105] Ride-hailing has especially affected ridership on the lines to the San Francisco International Airport and the Oakland International Airport. At SFO, ride-hailing services grew by a factor of almost six or nearly 500% at the airport between 2014 and 2016.[106] BART planners believe that competition from Uber and Lyft is reducing overall ridership growth and BART's share of airport transit.[107][108]

Stations in the urban cores of San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley have the highest ridership, while suburban stations record lower rider numbers. During fiscal year 2017, the busiest station was Embarcadero with 48,526 average weekday exits, followed by Montgomery Street with 45,386. The busiest station outside of San Francisco was 12th Street Oakland City Center with 13,965 riders, followed by 19th Street Oakland with 13,456. The least busy station was Oakland International Airport with 1,517 riders, while the least busy standard BART station was North Concord / Martinez with 2,702 weekday exits.[109]

BART's one-day ridership record was set on Halloween of 2012 with 568,061 passengers attending the San Francisco Giants' victory parade for their World Series championship.[110] This surpassed the record set two years earlier of 522,198 riders in 2010 for the Giants' 2010 World Series victory parade.[111] Before that, the record was 442,100 riders in October 2009, following an emergency closure of the Bay Bridge.[112] During a planned closure of the Bay Bridge, there were 475,015 daily riders on August 30, 2013, making that the third highest ridership.[113] On June 19, 2015, BART recorded 548,078 riders for the Golden State Warriors championship parade, placing second on the all-time ridership list.[114]

BART set a Saturday record of 419,162 riders on February 6, 2016, coinciding with Super Bowl 50 events and a Golden State Warriors game.[115][116] That easily surpassed the previous Saturday record of 319,484 riders, which occurred in October 2012, coinciding with several sporting events and Fleet Week.[117] BART set a Sunday ridership record of 292,957 riders in June 2013, in connection with the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade,[118] surpassing Sunday records set the previous two years when the Pride Parade was held.[118]

Ridership dropped sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns beginning in March 2020, during which BART was forced to drastically cut service.[119] Ridership in the weeks immediately following the start of the Bay Area's lockdown (on March 17, 2020) fell by as much as 93%.[119] As of September 2022, weekday ridership was about 37% of pre-pandemic levels and weekend ridership is about 60% of pre-pandemic levels.[119] If ridership does not recover and additional revenue is not obtained, in the worst case the agency projected it would only be able to sustain trains on three lines running once an hour from 5am to 9pm weekdays, and would have to close nine stations.[120]

In a 2020 survey, 51% of riders report household income below $50,000 (up from 26% in 2018), and 53% did not own a vehicle (up from 31% in 2018). Compared to the region, BART riders are more likely to be Black or Latino, and less likely to be White or Asian.[121]

Infrastructure

 
A typical concrete viaduct structure near Walnut Creek station

The entirety of the system runs in exclusive, grade-separated right-of-way. BART's rapid transit revenue routes cover about 120 miles (190 km) with 50 stations. On the main lines, approximately 28 miles (45 km) of lines run through underground sections with 32 miles (51 km) on elevated tracks.[5]

The main system uses an unusual 5 ft 6 in (1,676 mm) broad gauge[5][122] (mostly seen in India and Pakistan) and mostly ballastless track. Originally using flat-edge rail and wheelsets with cylindrical treads, in 2016 BART started switching to conical treads[123] to reduce the noise caused by flange/rail contact and loss of adhesion of one of the wheels on curves.[124] 1,000 volts DC is delivered to the trains over a third rail.[7] An automated guideway transit line and an additional station were opened in 2014, using off-the-shelf cable car technology developed by DCC Doppelmayr Cable Car: the Cable Liner. The section of the Antioch-SFO/Millbrae line east of the Pittsburg/Bay Point station runs on conventional unelectrified 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge rail.

Schedules call for trains to operate at up to 70 miles per hour (110 km/h), but certain segments (in particular, the Transbay Tube) are designed for 80 mph (130 km/h) operation when making up delays.[5][125][8]

Rapid transit trains have 4–10 cars, the maximum length of 710 feet (216 m) being the longest of any metro system in the United States and extending slightly beyond the 700-foot (213 m) platforms.[126] Cars are 10.5 feet (3.2 m) wide, the maximum gradient is four percent, and the minimum curve radius is 394 feet (120 m).[127] The combination of unique loading gauges and unusual rail technologies has complicated maintenance and increased cost of the system, as rolling stock requires custom wheelsets, brake systems, and power systems.[122][128]

Many of the original 1970s-era stations, especially the aerial stations, feature simple Brutalist architecture, but newer stations are a mix of Neomodern and Postmodern architecture. The additional double tracked four mile long upper deck of the Market Street Subway and its four underground stations were built by BART for Muni Metro.

Lines

The routes run on track segments ("lines"), which are internally but not commonly known by letters.[5][129][130]

Line Endpoints Opened Right of way
Heavy rail
A-Line Oakland Wye – Fremont September 11, 1972 Former Western Pacific Railroad right-of-way (UP Oakland Subdivision), tunnel near the Oakland Wye
C-Line Rockridge – Pittsburg/Bay Point May 21, 1973 (to Concord)
December 16, 1995 (to North Concord/Martinez)
December 7, 1996 (to Pittsburg/Bay Point) 		SR 24 median, Berkeley Hills Tunnel, former Sacramento Northern Railway right-of-way, SR 4 median
K-Line Oakland Wye – Rockridge September 11, 1972 (to MacArthur)
May 21, 1973 (to Rockridge) 		Tunnel under Broadway, SR 24 median
L-Line Bay Fair – Dublin/Pleasanton May 10, 1997 Median of I-238, median of I-580
M-Line Oakland Wye – Daly City Yard (north of Colma) November 5, 1973 (Daly City – Montgomery Street)
September 16, 1974 (Montgomery Street – Oakland Wye)
December 9, 1988 (to Daly City Yard) 		Elevated above 5th and 7th streets, Transbay Tube, tunnel under Market Street and Mission Street, former Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way (SF&SJ)
R-Line MacArthur – Richmond January 29, 1973 Elevated above Martin Luther King Jr. Way, tunnel under Adeline St and Shattuck Ave, former Santa Fe right-of-way
S-Line Fremont – Berryessa/North San José March 25, 2017 (to Warm Springs/South Fremont)
June 13, 2020 (to Berryessa/North San José)[9]		 Tunnel under Fremont Central Park, former Western Pacific Railroad right-of-way (San Jose Branch)
W-Line Daly City Yard – Millbrae February 24, 1996 (to Colma)
June 22, 2003 (to Millbrae) 		Former Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way (SF&SJ), shared Caltrain right-of-way
Y-Line W-Line – San Francisco International Airport June 22, 2003 Elevated wye into San Francisco International Airport
Light rail
E-Line Pittsburg/Bay Point – Antioch May 26, 2018 SR 4 median
Automated guideway transit (AGT)
H-Line Coliseum – Oakland International Airport November 22, 2014 Mostly elevated above Hegenberger Road, depressed section below Doolittle Drive


Automation

BART was one of the first U.S. rail transit systems of any size to be substantially automated. Routing and dispatching of trains, and adjustments for schedule recovery are controlled by a combination of computer and human supervision at BART's Operations Control Center (OCC) and headquarters at the Kaiser Center in Downtown Oakland. Station-to-station train movement, including speed control and maintenance of separation between successive trains, is entirely automatic under normal operation, the operator's routine responsibilities being issuing announcements, closing the doors after station stops, and monitoring the track ahead for hazards. In unusual circumstances the operator controls the train manually at reduced speed.[131]

Parking

Many BART stations offer parking; however, underpricing causes station parking lots to overflow in the morning.[132] Pervasive congestion and underpricing forces some to drive to distant stations in search of parking.[133] BART operates Parking Lots at 36 stations and offers parking passes for designated spots at many stations.[134]

BART hosts car sharing locations at many stations, a program introduced by City CarShare. Riders can transfer from BART and complete their journeys by car. BART offers long-term airport parking through a third-party vendor[135] at most East Bay stations. Travelers must make an online reservation in advance and pay the daily fee of $5 before they can leave their cars at the BART parking lot.

Parking at stations in Santa Clara County (Milpitas and Berryessa/North San José) is managed by Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority rather than BART.

Accessibility

All BART trains have dedicated spaces for wheelchair users and every station has accessible elevators.[136] Estimated train arrival times and service announcements are both displayed on platform-level screens and announced audibly over the public address system. Station platforms are equipped with tactile paving to aid those with visual impairments, and Braille/tactile signs are present throughout stations.[137]

Platform elevators

 
The elevator faregate on the Embarcadero station BART platform, installed in December 2021

At some stations, the elevator to the platform (which is inside the paid area) is accessed from an unpaid area of the station. To enter the BART system at one of these stations, passengers using the elevator must first pass through a faregate into the paid area and then exit back through the swing gate adjacent to the station agent booth before taking the elevator to the platform. To exit the system from one of these stations, passengers must do the reverse: take the elevator from the platform to the concourse level, enter the paid area through the swing gate, and then process their ticket at a faregate to exit the paid area once again. Station agents may be able to assist upon request.[136] The configuration of these stations enables fare evasion and causes confusion for passengers.[138]

As of 2020, eighteen stations[a] had a platform elevator outside of the paid area.[139] Of these, three stations[b] had ticket processing machines near the elevators that allowed elevator users to avoid having to enter, then exit, then re-enter the paid area; however, these did nothing to deter fare evasion.[136] BART has begun to correct this issue at stations either by expanding the paid area on the concourse level or by installing a single accessible faregate in front of the elevator doors.[138][139] By December 2021, the number of stations with elevators outside the paid area had been reduced to eight.[c][140] Seven of these stations are planned to have elevator faregates installed in 2022, while the paid area on the concourse level at 19th Street Oakland is being expanded to include the elevator as part of an ongoing renovation.[140][141][142]

Cell phone and Wi-Fi

In 2004, BART became the first transit system in the United States to offer cellular telephone communication to passengers of all major wireless carriers on its trains underground.[143] Service was made available for customers of Verizon Wireless, Sprint/Nextel, AT&T Mobility, and T-Mobile in and between the four San Francisco Market Street stations from Civic Center to Embarcadero. In 2009, service was expanded to include the Transbay Tube, thus providing continuous cellular coverage between West Oakland and Balboa Park.[144] In 2010, service was expanded to all underground stations in Oakland (19th Street, 12th Street/Oakland City Center, and Lake Merritt).[145]

In 2007, BART ran a beta test of Wi-Fi Internet access for travelers. It initially included the four San Francisco downtown stations: Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell, and Civic Center. It included above ground testing to trains at BART's Hayward Test Track. The testing and deployment was extended into the underground interconnecting tubes between the four downtown stations and further. The successful demonstration provided for a ten-year contract with WiFi Rail, Inc. for the services throughout the BART right of way.[146] In 2008, the Wi-Fi service was expanded to include the Transbay Tube.[147] BART terminated the relationship with Wi-Fi Rail in December 2014, citing that WiFi Rail had not submitted an adequate financial or technical plan for completing the network throughout the BART system.[148]

In 2011, during the Charles Hill killing and aftermath BART disabled cell phone service to hamper demonstrators.[149] The ensuing controversy drew widespread coverage[150] that raised legal questions about free speech rights of protesters and the federal telecommunications laws that relate to passengers.[151] In response, BART released an official policy on cutting off cell phone service.[152]

Organization and management

2012 statistics
Number of vehicles 670
Initial system cost $1.6 billion
Equivalent cost in 2004 dollars (replacement cost) $15 billion
Hourly passenger capacity 15,000
Maximum daily capacity 360,000
Average weekday ridership 365,510
Annual operating revenue $379.10 million
Annual expenses $619.10 million
Annual profits (losses) ($240.00 million)
Rail cost/passenger mile (excluding capital costs) $0.332

Governance

The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District is a special district consisting of Alameda County, Contra Costa County, and the City and County of San Francisco. San Mateo County, which hosts six BART stations, and Santa Clara County, which hosts two, are not part of the BART District. A nine-member elected Board of Directors represents nine districts. BART has its own police force.[153]

While the district includes all of the cities and communities in its jurisdiction, some of these cities do not have stations on the BART system. This has caused tensions among property owners in cities like Livermore who pay BART taxes but must travel outside the city to receive BART service.[154] In areas like Fremont, the majority of commuters do not commute in the direction that BART would take them (many Fremonters commute to San Jose)[citation needed]. This would be remedied with the completion of the Silicon Valley BART extension. Phase I of the extension opened on June 13, 2020, giving San Jose its first BART station, Berryessa/North San José station.

Budget

In 2005, BART required nearly $300 million in funds after fares. About 37% of the costs went to maintenance, 29% to actual transportation operations, 24% to general administration, 8% to police services, and 4% to construction and engineering. In 2005, 53% of the budget was derived from fares, 32% from taxes, and 15% from other sources, including advertising, station retail space leasing, and parking fees.[155] BART reported a farebox recovery ratio of 75.67% in February 2016,[156] up from 2012's 68.2%.[157] BART train operators and station agents have a maximum salary of $62,000 per year with an average of $17,000 in overtime pay.[158] (BART management claimed that in 2013, union train operators and station agents averaged about $71,000 in base salary and $11,000 in overtime, and pay a $92 monthly fee from that for health insurance.)[159]

Incidents and controversies

See also: History of BART § Incidents and accidents

BART Police shootings

Oscar Grant III

Main article: Shooting of Oscar Grant

On January 1, 2009, a BART Police officer, Johannes Mehserle, fatally shot Oscar Grant III.[160][161] Eyewitnesses gathered direct evidence of the shooting with video cameras, which were later submitted to and disseminated by media outlets and watched hundreds of thousands of times[162] in the days following the shooting. Both peaceful and violent demonstrations occurred protesting the shooting.[163]

BART held multiple public meetings to ease tensions led by BART Director Carole Ward Allen[164] who called on the BART Board to hire two independent auditors to investigate the shooting, and to provide recommendations to the board regarding BART Police misconduct.[165] Director Ward Allen established BART's first Police Department Review Committee and worked with Assemblyman Sandre Swanson to pass AB 1586 in the California State Legislature, which enforced civilian oversight of the BART Police Department.[166] BART Director Lynette Sweet said that "BART has not handled this [situation] correctly,"[167] and called for the BART police chief and general manager to step down, but only one other BART Director, Tom Radulovich, supported such action.[168]

Mehserle was arrested and charged with murder, to which he pleaded not guilty. Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris filed a US$25 million wrongful death claim against the district on behalf of Grant's daughter and girlfriend.[169] Mehserle's trial was subsequently moved to Los Angeles following concerns that he would be unable to get a fair trial in Alameda County. On July 8, 2010, Mehserle was found guilty on a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.[170] He was released on parole on June 13, 2011.[171]

Charles Hill

On July 3, 2011, an officer of the BART Police shot and killed Charles Hill at Civic Center Station in San Francisco. Hill had thrown a bottle at the officers and was in the process of throwing a knife at them from a distance of about 15 feet when the first shot was fired.[172]

On August 12, 2011, BART shut down cellphone services on the network for three hours in an effort to hamper possible protests against the shooting[173][174] and to keep communications away from protesters at the Civic Center station in San Francisco.[175] The shutdown caught the attention of state senator Leland Yee and international media, as well as drawing comparisons to the internet shutdowns during the Egyptian revolution earlier that year.[176] Antonette Bryant, the union president for BART, stated that "BART have lost our confidence and are putting rider and employee safety at risk."[177]

Members of Anonymous broke into BART's website and posted names, phone numbers, addresses, and e-mail information on the Anonymous website.[178][179]

On August 15, 2011, there was more disruption in service at BART stations in downtown San Francisco.[180][181][182] The San Francisco Examiner reported that the protests were a result of the shootings, including that of Oscar Grant.[183][184]

On August 29, 2011, a coalition of nine public interest groups led by Public Knowledge filed an Emergency Petition asking the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to declare "that the actions taken by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District ("BART") on August 11, 2011, violated the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, when it deliberately interfered with access to Commercial Mobile Radio Service ("CMRS") by the public" and "that local law enforcement has no authority to suspend or deny CMRS, or to order CMRS providers to suspend or deny service, absent a properly obtained order from the Commission, a state commission of appropriate jurisdiction, or a court of law with appropriate jurisdiction".[185][186]

In December 2011 BART adopted a new "Cell Service Interruption Policy" that only allows shutdowns of cell phone services within BART facilities "in the most extraordinary circumstances that threaten the safety of District passengers, employees and other members of public, the destruction of District property, or the substantial disruption of public transit service".[187] According to a spokesperson for BART, under the new policy the wireless phone system would not be turned off under circumstances similar to those in August 2011. Instead police officers would arrest individuals who break the law.[188]

In February 2012, the San Francisco District Attorney concluded that the BART Police Officer that shot and killed Charles Hill at the Civic Center BART station the previous July "acted lawfully in self defense" and would not face charges for the incident.[189]

In March 2012, the FCC requested public comment on the question of whether or when the police and other government officials can intentionally interrupt cellphone and Internet service to protect public safety.[188]

A federal lawsuit filed against BART by Charles Hill's brother was dismissed in 2013.[172] The federal judge concluded that "a reasonable officer in that situation could believe that he was in danger of being hit by a knife after having had a bottle thrown at him."[172] The lawyers of Hill's family did not dispute that he had thrown a knife at the officer, but argued that both officers should have done more to deescalate the situation.[172]

Worker fatalities

1979 fatal electrical fire

Further information: Transbay Tube § January 1979 fire

In January 1979, an electrical fire occurred on a train as it was passing through the Transbay Tube. One firefighter (Lt. William Elliott, 50, of the Oakland Fire Department) was killed in the effort to extinguish the blaze. Since then, safety regulations have been updated.[190]

James Strickland

On October 14, 2008, track inspector James Strickland was struck and killed by a train as he was walking along a section of track between the Concord and Pleasant Hill BART stations. Strickland's death started an investigation into BART's safety alert procedures.[191] At the time of the accident, BART had assigned trains headed in opposite directions to a shared track for routine maintenance. BART came under further fire in February 2009 for allegedly delaying payment of death benefits to Strickland's family.[192]

October 2013 incident

On the afternoon of October 19, 2013, a BART employee and a contractor, who were inspecting tracks, were struck and killed near Walnut Creek by a train being moved for routine maintenance. A labor strike by BART's two major unions was underway at the time, which caused BART to use an undertrained operator. Instead of the usual 14 weeks of the training, the operator only received four. The BART trainer was not in the cab with the operator at the time of impact but was instead in the passenger compartment. The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the accident occurred because BART facilitated access to the railway line.[193] BART was fined $600,000 for the incident.[194]

Crime

In mid-2017, BART came under criticism for refusing to publicly release video evidence of crimes committed at Oakland stations. That year, in at least three incidents, groups of young people had boarded stopped trains and attacked and robbed train riders.[195] In response to the criticism, a BART manager argued that "to release these videos would create a high level of racially insensitive commentary toward the district [...] and in addition it would create a racial bias in the riders against minorities on the trains." According to an internal memo, the agency decided to not issue a press release about one of the cases (where a woman had her phone stolen by one of a group of teenagers) in order to avoid having BART look "crime ridden" and because it would "unfairly affect and characterize riders of color, leading to sweeping generalizations in media reports."[195] A spokesman also stated that state laws about "juvenile police records" prohibited BART from releasing surveillance video.[195] In 2018, BART released surveillance video from one of the 2017 incidents, showing (as summarized by KRON4) "the moments leading up to a mob-style attack on a BART train [... with] about 40 teens jumping the fare gates and pushing through the emergency gates at the station as an overwhelmed station agent calls for help."[196] BART stated that two juveniles and an 18-year-old had been arrested for the incident, with the 18-year-old ending up serving one year in jail.[196] In September 2017, six victims of the robberies/assaults filed suit against BART for gross negligence, claiming BART did not provide adequate security for its riders.[197] In January 2020, two passengers affected by the same incident lost their lawsuits, one of them on the grounds that she had been attacked on the platform rather than on the train, outside of BART's common carrier duties.[198][199]

On July 22, 2018, a man fatally stabbed 18-year-old Nia Wilson with a knife as she exited a train car at the MacArthur station.[200] This was the third homicide at a BART station within five days.[201] In June 2019, the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury released a report documenting a 128% increase in thefts on BART between 2014 and 2018, and an 83% increase in aggravated assault during the same time period.[202]

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  86. ^ "Clipper BayPass pilot program launched; transit pass to be used on all Bay Area public transit agencies". CBS News. August 17, 2022.
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March 20, 2023
area, rapid, transit, bart, redirects, here, other, uses, bart, disambiguation, bart, rapid, transit, system, serving, francisco, area, california, bart, serves, stations, along, routes, miles, kilometers, track, including, mile, spur, line, running, antioch, . BART redirects here For other uses see BART disambiguation Bay Area Rapid Transit BART is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California BART serves 50 stations along six routes and 131 miles 211 kilometers of track including a 9 mile 14 km spur line running to Antioch which uses diesel multiple unit vehicles and a 3 mile 4 8 km automated guideway transit line serving the Oakland International Airport With an average of 145 700 weekday passengers as of the third quarter of 2022 and 26 026 800 annual passengers in 2021 BART is the fifth busiest heavy rail rapid transit system in the United States Bay Area Rapid Transit BART A BART train approaching Walnut Creek in October 2022OverviewLocaleSan Francisco Bay Area Alameda Contra Costa San Francisco San Mateo and Santa Clara counties Transit typeRapid transit main system Light rail eBART AGT Oakland Airport connector Number of lines5 rapid transit lines 1 with diesel light rail extension 1 AGT lineNumber of stations50 7 planned proposed Daily ridership145 700 weekdays Q3 2022 1 Annual ridership26 026 800 2021 2 Chief executiveRobert Powers 3 Headquarters2150 Webster StreetOakland CaliforniaWebsitebart wbr govOperationBegan operationSeptember 11 1972 1972 09 11 Operator s San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit DistrictCharacterFully grade separated with at grade elevated and underground sectionsNumber of vehicles789 total with 618 legacy cars and 171 new cars in service 4 with 8 DMU vehicle sets eBART 5 and 4 AGT vehicle setsTrain length4 10 cars 710 feet 216 m max 2 car married pair DMUs 3 cars AGT Headway15 30 mins by line 6 TechnicalSystem length131 4 mi 211 5 km 5 Track gauge5 ft 6 in 1 676 mm Indian gauge 5 eBART 4 ft 8 1 2 in 1 435 mm standard gauge 5 Minimum radius of curvature120 m 394 ft ElectrificationThird rail 1 kV DC 5 7 Average speed35 mph 56 km h 5 Top speed80 mph 130 km h maximum 70 mph 110 km h normal operations 8 5 System mapBART is operated by the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District which formed in 1957 The initial system opened in stages from 1972 to 1974 The system has been extended several times most recently in 2020 when Milpitas and Berryessa North San Jose stations opened as part of the under construction Silicon Valley BART extension in partnership with the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority VTA 9 Contents 1 Services 1 1 Hours and frequencies 1 2 Connecting services 2 History 2 1 Origins planning and geographical coverage 2 2 Early years and train control problems 2 3 Extensions 2 4 System modernization 3 Rolling stock 3 1 Car types 3 2 Next generation railcars 3 3 Depots 4 Fares 4 1 Fare schedule 4 2 Fare media 5 Ridership levels 6 Infrastructure 6 1 Lines 6 2 Automation 6 3 Parking 6 4 Accessibility 6 4 1 Platform elevators 6 5 Cell phone and Wi Fi 7 Organization and management 7 1 Governance 7 2 Budget 8 Incidents and controversies 8 1 BART Police shootings 8 1 1 Oscar Grant III 8 1 2 Charles Hill 8 2 Worker fatalities 8 2 1 1979 fatal electrical fire 8 2 2 James Strickland 8 2 3 October 2013 incident 8 3 Crime 9 References 9 1 Notes 10 Further reading 11 External linksServices EditBART serves large portions of its three member counties San Francisco Alameda and Contra Costa as well as smaller portions of San Mateo County and Santa Clara counties The system has 50 stations 22 in Alameda County 12 in Contra Costa County 8 in San Francisco 6 in San Mateo County and 2 in Santa Clara County BART operates five named heavy rail services plus one separate automated guideway line All of the heavy rail services run through Oakland and all but the Orange Line cross the bay through the Transbay Tube to San Francisco All five services run every day until 9 pm only three services operate evenings after 9 pm All stations are served during all service hours 10 The eastern segment of the Yellow Line between Antioch and the transfer platform east of Pittsburg Bay Point uses different rolling stock and is separated from the rest of the line 11 Unlike most other rapid transit systems BART lines historically were not primarily referred by color names although the colors used on maps have been constant since 1980 or other shorthand designations The services are mainly identified on maps schedules and station signage by the names of their termini However the D and E class fleet displays line colors more prominently and BART has begun to use color names in press releases and GTFS data 12 13 Color Route name First service Lines used Notes 14 Orange Line September 11 1972 R K A S Operates during all service hours Yellow Line May 21 1973 C K M W Y E Operates during all service hours Daytime service ends at SFO evening after 9 pm service ends at Millbrae Uses DMU vehicles eBART between Antioch and Pittsburg Bay Point Green Line September 16 1974 S A M No evening after 9 pm service Red Line April 19 1976 R K M W Y No evening after 9 pm service Blue Line May 10 1997 L A M Operates during all service hours Beige Line November 22 2014 H Operates during all service hours Uses AGT vehicles Hours and frequencies Edit Map of evening 9pm midnight service BART has elements of both traditional rapid transit high frequency urban service with close station spacing and commuter rail regional rail lower frequency suburban service with wider station spacing Trains on each primary service run every 15 minutes on weekdays and every 30 minutes on evenings and weekends On Saturdays until 8 pm Yellow Line service between Pittsburg Bay Point and SFO runs every 15 minutes Segments served by multiple lines have higher frequencies the busiest of which is the section between Daly City and West Oakland which has around 16 trains per hour per direction at peak hours The Beige Line runs on demand typically on headways of 10 minutes or less 14 The first inbound trains leave outer terminals around 5 00 am on weekdays 6 00 am on Saturdays and 8 00 am on Sundays and most holidays The previous 4 00 am weekday start time was changed to 5 00 am for a planned three years starting on February 11 2019 to accommodate retrofitting of the Transbay Tube 13 The last trains of the service day leave their terminals around midnight the final Yellow and Orange Line trains in both directions meet at MacArthur station and the final Orange and Blue Line trains in the southbound direction meet at Bay Fair station for guaranteed transfers Two of the five rapid transit services the Green and Red Lines do not operate after 9 pm though all stations are served at all service hours 10 Two different bus networks operated by regional transit agencies run during the overnight hours when BART is not operating The All Nighter network provides basic overnight service to much of the Bay Area Most BART stations are served directly or within several blocks by the All Nighter system except for the Antioch Rockridge and Bay Fair Dublin Pleasanton segments plus Warm Springs South Fremont station 15 The Early Bird Express network provides service major BART stations between 3 50 am and 5 30 am to replace early morning weekday service during the Transbay Tube retrofit project Two San Francisco Peninsula routes and seven Transbay routes run between a limited number of major BART stations with the San Francisco Peninsula and Transbay routes meeting at the Transbay Transit Center The original Early Bird Express network introduced in February 2019 had fifteen routes but some were eliminated later that year due to low ridership 16 17 18 Connecting services Edit AC Transit buses at San Leandro station Intermodal connections to local regional and intercity transit including bus light rail commuter rail and intercity rail are available across the BART system Three Amtrak intercity rail services the California Zephyr Capitol Corridor and San Joaquin stop at Richmond station the Capitol Corridor also stops at Oakland Coliseum station The Oakland Jack London Square station and Emeryville station hubs which are served by those three routes plus the Coast Starlight are not located near BART stations 11 Amtrak Thruway service also stops at Dublin Pleasanton station 19 Transfer between BART and Caltrain commuter rail service is available at Millbrae station 11 BART and all lines of the Muni Metro light rail system share four stations Embarcadero Montgomery Street Powell Street and Civic Center UN Plaza in the Market Street Subway connections are also available to three lines at Balboa Park station and one line at Glen Park station Milpitas station provides a connection to the Orange Line of VTA Light Rail 11 BART is served by bus connections from regional and local transit agencies at all stations most of which have dedicated off street bus transfer areas Many connecting routes particularly in suburban areas serve primarily as feeder routes to BART Larger bus systems connecting to BART include Muni in San Francisco AC Transit in the East Bay SamTrans in San Mateo County County Connection and Tri Delta Transit in eastern Contra Costa County WestCAT in western Contra Costa County WHEELS in the Tri Valley VTA in the Santa Clara Valley and Golden Gate Transit Smaller systems include Emery Go Round in Emeryville Commute org on the Peninsula San Leandro LINKS Dumbarton Express and Union City Transit The Transbay Transit Center regional bus hub is located one block from Embarcadero and Montgomery stations 19 Several transit agencies offer limited commuter oriented bus service from more distant cities to outlying BART stations these include VINE from Napa County Solano Express from Solano County Rio Vista Delta Breeze Stanislaus Regional Transit Authority from Stanislaus County and San Joaquin RTD from Stockton Many BART stations are also served by privately run employer and hospital shuttles and privately run intercity buses stop at several stations 19 BART also runs directly to two of the three major Bay Area airports San Francisco International Airport and Oakland International Airport with service to San Jose International Airport provided by a VTA bus route available at Milpitas station 19 11 History EditFor broader coverage of this topic see History of Bay Area Rapid Transit Origins planning and geographical coverage Edit Some of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system s current coverage area was once served by an electrified streetcar and suburban train system called the Key System This early 20th century system once had regular transbay traffic across the lower deck of the Bay Bridge but the system was dismantled in the 1950s with its last transbay crossing in 1958 and was superseded by highway travel A 1950s study of traffic problems in the Bay Area concluded the most cost effective solution for the Bay Area s traffic woes would be to form a transit district charged with the construction and operation of a new high speed rapid transit system linking the cities and suburbs 20 Marvin E Lewis a San Francisco trial attorney and member of the city s board of supervisors spearheaded a grassroots movement to advance the idea of an alternative bay crossing and the possibility of regional transit network 21 Formal planning for BART began with the setting up in 1957 of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District a county based special purpose district body that governs the BART system The district initially began with five members all of which were projected to receive BART lines Alameda County Contra Costa County the City and County of San Francisco San Mateo County and Marin County Although invited to participate Santa Clara County supervisors elected not to join BART due to their dissatisfaction that the peninsula line only stopped at Palo Alto initially and that it interfered with suburban development in San Jose preferring instead to concentrate on constructing freeways and expressways Though the system expanded into Santa Clara County in 2020 it is still when not a district member when In 1962 San Mateo County supervisors voted to leave BART saying their voters would be paying taxes to carry mainly Santa Clara County residents presumably along I 280 SR 92 and SR 85 22 The district wide tax base was weakened by San Mateo s departure forcing Marin County to withdraw a month later Despite the fact that Marin had originally voted in favor of BART participation at the 88 level its marginal tax base could not adequately absorb its share of BART s projected cost Another important factor in Marin s withdrawal was an engineering controversy over the feasibility of running trains on the lower deck of the Golden Gate Bridge an extension forecast as late as three decades after the rest of the BART system 23 24 25 The withdrawals of Marin and San Mateo resulted in a downsizing of the original system plans which would have had lines as far south as Palo Alto and northward past San Rafael Voters in the three remaining participating counties approved the truncated system with termini in Fremont Richmond Concord and Daly City in 1962 26 Construction of the system began in 1964 and included a number of major engineering challenges including excavating subway tunnels in San Francisco Oakland and Berkeley constructing aerial structures throughout the Bay Area particularly in Alameda and Contra Costa counties tunneling through the Berkeley Hills on the Concord line and lowering the system s centerpiece the Transbay Tube connecting Oakland and San Francisco into a trench dredged onto the floor of San Francisco Bay 27 Like other transit systems of the same era BART endeavored to connect outlying suburbs with job centers in Oakland and San Francisco by building lines that paralleled established commuting routes of the region s freeway system 28 BART envisioned frequent local service with headways as short as two minutes between trains through the Transbay Tube and six minutes on each individual line 29 Early years and train control problems Edit Passenger service began on September 11 1972 initially just between MacArthur and Fremont The rest of the system opened in stages with the entire system opening in 1974 when the transbay service through the Transbay Tube began 30 The new BART system was hailed as a major step forward in subway technology 31 although questions were asked concerning the safety of the system 32 and the huge expenditures necessary for the construction of the network 33 Ridership remained well below projected levels throughout the 1970s and direct service from Daly City to Richmond and Fremont was not phased in until several years after the system opened Some of the early safety concerns appeared to be well founded when the system experienced a number of train control failures in its first few years of operation As early as 1969 before revenue service began several BART engineers identified safety problems with the Automatic Train Control ATC system The BART Board of Directors was dismissive of their concerns and retaliated by firing them 34 Less than a month after the system s opening on October 2 1972 an ATC failure caused a train to run off the end of the elevated track at the terminal Fremont station and crash to the ground injuring four people 35 36 The Fremont Flyer led to a comprehensive redesign of the train controls and also resulted in multiple investigations being opened by the California State Senate California Public Utilities Commission and National Transportation Safety Board 37 Hearings by the state legislature in 1974 into financial mismanagement at BART forced the General Manager to resign in May 1974 and the entire Board of Directors was replaced the same year when the legislature passed legislation leading to the election of a new Board and the end of appointed members 38 39 40 41 42 43 Extensions Edit Main article Bay Area Rapid Transit expansion Even before the BART system opened planners projected several possible extensions Although Marin County was left out of the original system the 1970 Golden Gate Transportation Facilities Plan considered a tunnel under the Golden Gate or second deck on the bridge but neither of these plans was pursued 44 Over twenty years would pass before the first extensions to the BART system were completed to Colma and Pittsburg Bay Point in 1996 An extension to Dublin Pleasanton in 1997 added a fifth line to the system for the first time in BART s history The system was expanded to San Francisco International Airport in 2003 and to Oakland International Airport via an automated guideway transit spur line in 2014 45 46 eBART an extension using diesel multiple units along conventional railroad infrastructure between Pittsburg Bay Point and Antioch opened on May 26 2018 BART s most significant current extension project is the Silicon Valley BART extension The first phase extended the Fremont line to Warm Springs South Fremont in early 2017 and the second phase to Berryessa North San Jose began service on June 13 2020 The third phase to Santa Clara is contingent upon the allocation of funding as of May 2020 update but is planned to be completed by 2030 47 Plans had long been floated for an extension from Dublin to Livermore but the most recent proposal was rejected by the BART board in 2018 48 Other plans have included an extension to Hercules a line along the Interstate Highway 680 corridor and a fourth set of rail tracks through Oakland needs update 49 At least four infill stations such as Irvington and Calaveras on existing lines have been proposed 50 With the Transbay Tube nearing capacity long range plans included a new four bore Transbay Tube beneath San Francisco Bay that would run parallel and south of the existing tunnel and emerge at the Transbay Transit Terminal to connect to Caltrain and the future California High Speed Rail system The four bore tunnel would provide two tunnels for BART and two tunnels for conventional high speed rail The BART system and conventional U S rail use different and incompatible rail gauges and different loading gauges 5 In 2018 BART announced that a feasibility study for installing a second transbay crossing would commence the following year 51 By 2019 the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority had joined with BART to study a multi modal crossing which could also allow Capitol Corridor and San Joaquin routes to serve San Francisco directly 52 System modernization Edit In 2007 BART stated its intention to improve non peak night and weekend headways for each line to 15 minutes The 20 minute headways at these times is a barrier to ridership 53 In mid 2007 BART temporarily reversed its position stating that the shortened wait times would likely not happen due to a 900 000 state revenue budget shortfall Nevertheless BART eventually confirmed the implementation of the plan by January 2008 54 Continued budgetary problems halted the expanded non peak service and returned off peak headways to 20 minutes in 2009 55 In 2008 BART announced that it would install solar panels at two yards maintenance facilities and Orinda station 56 the only station that receives enough amount of sunlight to justify installation cost 56 In 2012 the California Transportation Commission announced that they would provide funding for expanding BART facilities through the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority in anticipation of the opening of the Silicon Valley Berryessa Extension 50 million would go in part to improvements to the Hayward Maintenance Complex 57 In March 2019 BART announced that they would begin updating ticket add fare machines inside the paid area to accept debit and credit cards for payment for Clipper cards only 58 In December 2020 BART completed the changeover to Clipper and stopped issuing magstripe paper tickets Existing paper tickets remained valid 59 In April 2021 BART began accepting Clipper cards on Apple Pay Google Pay and the Clipper app at all BART stations 60 During the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake the BART equipment was mostly undamaged A 2010 study 61 concluded that along with some Bay Area freeways some of BART s overhead structures could collapse in a major earthquake which has a significant probability of occurring within three decades 62 Seismic retrofitting has been carried out since 2004 upon voter approval to address these deficiencies especially in the Transbay Tube BART projects that Transbay Tube retrofits are expected to be completed in 2023 63 64 Rolling stock EditMain article Bay Area Rapid Transit rolling stock Car types Edit Side view of nine car BART train made up of four C cars and five B cars Interior of a typical older mainline BART car The mainline BART network operates five types of electric powered self propelled railcars The older types built between 1968 and 1996 totaled 669 cars and have two sets of passenger doors on each side of the car The newer two types which are technologically incompatible with the older types are in the process of manufacturing delivery and commissioning as of January 2023 update The new cars are due to replace all older types and expanding the fleet for future extensions They will all feature three sets of passenger doors on each side of the car to speed up passenger boarding 65 BART trains have gangway connections and passengers can move freely between cars 66 To run a typical peak morning commute BART requires 579 cars Of those 535 are scheduled to be in active service the others are used to build up four spare trains used to maintain on time service 67 68 The Beige Line uses a completely separate and independently operated fleet of cable car based automated guideway transit vehicles It uses four Cable Liner trains built by DCC Doppelmayr Cable Car arranged as three car sets but the system can accommodate four car trains in the future The eBART extension uses eight Stadler GTW diesel railcars 69 The Stadler GTW vehicles are diesel multiple units which operate over standard gauge tracks as opposed to BART s broad gauge 70 71 Current fleet Lines Manufacturer Class Image Car numbers Qty Built NotesMain system Rohr A 1164 1276 59 1968 1975 To be replaced by the D and E cars B 1501 1913 380 1971 1975Alstom C1 301 450 150 1987 1989Alstom Bombardier D 3001 3310 310 2012 Being delivered E 4001 4465 465Oakland Airport Connector Doppelmayr Cable Liner 1 3 4 3 4 trains 12 cars 2014 Automated guideway transit trainsetseBART Stadler GTW 101 108 8 2016 Diesel multiple unit trainsetsNext generation railcars Edit Interior of a new BART car BART has ordered 775 new cars from Bombardier which merged with Alstom during production 72 73 310 cab cars D cars which like the older C cars can be at any position in a train although unlike C cars will not permit passenger movement between cars past the cab and 465 non cab cars E cars 74 12 The new cars have three doors on each side increased from the current two to speed station stops bike racks 54 seats per car and interior and exterior displays giving information 12 The new cars are incompatible with all prior cars and must run in separate trains The first test car was unveiled in April 2016 70 The first cars were expected to be in service in December 2016 however glitches and a failed CPUC inspection delayed introduction to January 19 2018 75 76 77 Depots Edit The initial BART system included car storage and maintenance yards in Concord Hayward and Richmond with an additional maintenance only no car storage yard in Oakland The Daly City car storage and maintenance yard opened in December 1988 24 The Beige Line uses the Doolittle Maintenance and Storage Facility eBART vehicles use a facility in Antioch Fares Edit Two BART ticket machines at Embarcadero station in San Francisco Both have been converted to Clipper card usage only The machine on the left dispenses new Clipper cards and adds value to existing cards while the machine on the right only adds value to existing cards Fare schedule Edit BART has distance based fares which requires riders to use faregates to both enter and exit with a flat fare of 2 15 for trips under 6 miles 9 7 km A surcharge is added for trips traveling through the Transbay Tube 1 40 to from Oakland International Airport 6 70 or San Francisco International Airport 4 95 and to from San Mateo County 1 45 except 1 25 for Daly City 78 79 2 9 The maximum fare including both airport surcharges and the Transbay surcharge is 17 60 the maximum without surcharges Antioch Berryessa North San Jose is 10 30 78 As of June 2022 update the average fare paid is 3 93 80 Because of the varied fares it is possible to enter the system with enough stored value for a shorter trip but not a longer trip Passengers without sufficient fare to complete their journey must use an add fare machine to add value in order to exit the station 81 As of June 2022 update entering and exiting at the same station incurs an excursion fare of 6 40 significantly higher than many station to station fares 81 82 This was originally introduced to allow people to tour the then futuristic system it was kept to discourage undesired behaviors such as tech bus riders using BART parking lots The excursion fare has been criticized for negatively impacting riders who leave stations during service disruptions although station agents can allow riders to exit without fare payment As of December 2022 BART is working to implement a 30 minute grace period before the fare is charged 83 Unlike many other rapid transit systems BART does not have weekly or monthly passes with unlimited rides 84 The only discount provided to the general public is a 6 25 reduction when high value tickets only available on Clipper cards with autoload are purchased with fare values of 48 and 64 50 discount is available to youth aged 5 18 children age 4 and under ride free and a 62 5 discount is provided to seniors and disabled people The Clipper START program for low income adults provides a 20 discount 84 The San Francisco Muni and BART offer a combined monthly A Fast Pass which allows unlimited rides on Muni services plus BART service within San Francisco 84 In August 2022 BART launched Clipper BayPass a two year pilot program to examine the viability of a transit pass that is compatible with all the public transit agencies in the Bay Area The program was initially made available to around 50 000 college students and affordable housing residents 85 86 Fare media Edit The primary fare media for BART is the Clipper card which is used by most Bay Area transit agencies Clipper is a contactless smart card passengers tap in and out at card readers on faregates Clipper cards in Apple Pay and Google Wallet electronic wallets can also be used A legacy BART ticket The initial purchased fare is printed parallel to the magnetic strip and the card s balance is printed on the left updated at each exit BART s original fare system used paper plastic composite tickets with a magnetic stripe 87 The tickets were sold by fare vending machines When exiting faregates read the magnetically stored value on the card encoded the new value with the fare subtracted and printed the new value on the card Tickets with no remaining value were retained by the machine rather than being returned 88 The entire fare system was designed and built by IBM under a 7 million contract equivalent to 35 million in 2021 89 It was the third system with encoded value magnetic stripe tickets in the US following the Illinois Central Gulf commuter line in 1964 and PATCO in 1968 90 Although tickets could be refilled at fare machines riders often discarded tickets with small values remaining BART formerly relied on unused ticket values on such discarded cards for additional revenue as much as 9 9 million annually in 1999 91 Paper tickets stopped being sold in December 2020 92 but can still be used 81 93 However due to supply chain shortages resulting in a lack of plastic Clipper cards BART started issuing paper tickets again at the SFO station in October 2022 94 These tickets cannot be refilled at any station in the BART system as no other vending machines are capable of accepting them In 2006 BART began piloting a smart card for fare payment called EZ Rider this program was abandoned in 2010 in favor of a regional farecard 95 96 In 2009 BART became one of the first five transit agencies to accept TransLink later renamed Clipper cards for fare payment 97 and began phasing out paper tickets beginning with high value discount tickets As of December 2020 all BART ticket machines except for add fare machines inside of paid areas have been converted to Clipper use only New paper tickets are no longer issued though existing paper tickets continue to be accepted at faregates 59 A 50 cent surcharge per trip 25 cents for discounted fares is applied to all journeys made on paper tickets 98 Ridership levels EditFor most of its history BART s ridership has reflected the U S economy growing modestly during periods of economic expansion and dropping slightly during recessions 99 A major exception occurred in 1989 in the aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake which severely damaged the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge causing its closure for a month BART became the only direct route between the East Bay and San Francisco resulting in a nearly 17 ridership jump for the 1990 fiscal year 99 Ridership would not drop back to previous levels after the repair of the bridge until the COVID 19 pandemic began to affect the Bay Area in March 2020 Between 2010 and 2015 BART ridership grew rapidly mirroring strong economic growth in the Bay Area In 2015 the system was carrying approximately 100 000 more passengers each day than it had five years earlier 100 High gasoline prices also contributed to growth pushing ridership to record levels during 2012 with the system recording five record ridership days in September and October 2012 101 After six straight years of expansion ridership growth began to slow in late 2016 dropping by 1 7 in October 2016 from the prior year 102 Although the fiscal year ending June 30 2017 showed an average weekday ridership of 423 395 the second highest in BART s history this was a 2 3 drop from FY 2016 99 Ridership continued to decline by approximately 3 per year between 2016 and 2019 mirroring a nationwide decline in mass transit ridership in the second half of the decade 103 Some see this decline as linked to changes in commute patterns the fall in gasoline prices since 2014 and competition from the private sector in the form of ride hailing services such as Uber and Lyft 104 105 Ride hailing has especially affected ridership on the lines to the San Francisco International Airport and the Oakland International Airport At SFO ride hailing services grew by a factor of almost six or nearly 500 at the airport between 2014 and 2016 106 BART planners believe that competition from Uber and Lyft is reducing overall ridership growth and BART s share of airport transit 107 108 Stations in the urban cores of San Francisco Oakland and Berkeley have the highest ridership while suburban stations record lower rider numbers During fiscal year 2017 the busiest station was Embarcadero with 48 526 average weekday exits followed by Montgomery Street with 45 386 The busiest station outside of San Francisco was 12th Street Oakland City Center with 13 965 riders followed by 19th Street Oakland with 13 456 The least busy station was Oakland International Airport with 1 517 riders while the least busy standard BART station was North Concord Martinez with 2 702 weekday exits 109 BART s one day ridership record was set on Halloween of 2012 with 568 061 passengers attending the San Francisco Giants victory parade for their World Series championship 110 This surpassed the record set two years earlier of 522 198 riders in 2010 for the Giants 2010 World Series victory parade 111 Before that the record was 442 100 riders in October 2009 following an emergency closure of the Bay Bridge 112 During a planned closure of the Bay Bridge there were 475 015 daily riders on August 30 2013 making that the third highest ridership 113 On June 19 2015 BART recorded 548 078 riders for the Golden State Warriors championship parade placing second on the all time ridership list 114 BART set a Saturday record of 419 162 riders on February 6 2016 coinciding with Super Bowl 50 events and a Golden State Warriors game 115 116 That easily surpassed the previous Saturday record of 319 484 riders which occurred in October 2012 coinciding with several sporting events and Fleet Week 117 BART set a Sunday ridership record of 292 957 riders in June 2013 in connection with the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade 118 surpassing Sunday records set the previous two years when the Pride Parade was held 118 Ridership dropped sharply during the COVID 19 pandemic and associated lockdowns beginning in March 2020 during which BART was forced to drastically cut service 119 Ridership in the weeks immediately following the start of the Bay Area s lockdown on March 17 2020 fell by as much as 93 119 As of September 2022 update weekday ridership was about 37 of pre pandemic levels and weekend ridership is about 60 of pre pandemic levels 119 If ridership does not recover and additional revenue is not obtained in the worst case the agency projected it would only be able to sustain trains on three lines running once an hour from 5am to 9pm weekdays and would have to close nine stations 120 In a 2020 survey 51 of riders report household income below 50 000 up from 26 in 2018 and 53 did not own a vehicle up from 31 in 2018 Compared to the region BART riders are more likely to be Black or Latino and less likely to be White or Asian 121 Infrastructure EditvteBay Area Rapid Transit system diagramLegend eBART Maintenance Yard Antioch Pittsburg Center Pittsburg Bay Point Diablo Range North Concord Martinez Concord Richmond Maintenance Yard Richmond Concord Train Yard El Cerrito del Norte Pleasant Hill Contra Costa Centre El Cerrito Plaza Walnut Creek Contra Costa CountyAlameda County North Berkeley Lafayette Downtown Berkeley Orinda Ashby Berkeley Hills Tunnel Contra Costa CountyAlameda County Rockridge MacArthur southbound 19th Street Oakland northbound 12th Street Oakland City Center Oakland Wye Lake Merritt West Oakland Fruitvale Alameda CountySan Francisco Transbay Tube Coliseum San Leandro CreekMuni Metroto 4th amp King Doolittle Maintenance and Storage Facility Embarcadero OAK Airport Montgomery Street San Leandro Powell Street Bay Fair Civic Center UN Plaza Castro Valley Muni Metroto West Portal San Leandro Hills16th Street Mission West Dublin Pleasanton 24th Street Mission Dublin Pleasanton Glen Park San Lorenzo Creek Hayward Balboa Park South Hayward San FranciscoSan Mateo County Daly City Hayward Maintenance Complex Union City Alameda Creek Colma Fremont Colma Maintenance Yard Lake Elizabeth tunnel Irvington proposed South San Francisco Warm Springs South Fremont Colma Creek Alameda CountySanta Clara County San Bruno Calaveras proposed Milpitas via SFO Airport Berryessa North San Jose Millbrae San Jose extension 28th Street Little Portugal 2029 Downtown San Jose 2029 2029 Santa Clara Diridon 2029 Newhall Maintenance Facility 5 ft 6 in gauge third rail 1 000 V DC Standard gauge DMU eBART Market Street SubwayMuni Metro on upper level Cable Liner AGT BART to OAK transfer between BART lines A typical concrete viaduct structure near Walnut Creek station The entirety of the system runs in exclusive grade separated right of way BART s rapid transit revenue routes cover about 120 miles 190 km with 50 stations On the main lines approximately 28 miles 45 km of lines run through underground sections with 32 miles 51 km on elevated tracks 5 The main system uses an unusual 5 ft 6 in 1 676 mm broad gauge 5 122 mostly seen in India and Pakistan and mostly ballastless track Originally using flat edge rail and wheelsets with cylindrical treads in 2016 BART started switching to conical treads 123 to reduce the noise caused by flange rail contact and loss of adhesion of one of the wheels on curves 124 1 000 volts DC is delivered to the trains over a third rail 7 An automated guideway transit line and an additional station were opened in 2014 using off the shelf cable car technology developed by DCC Doppelmayr Cable Car the Cable Liner The section of the Antioch SFO Millbrae line east of the Pittsburg Bay Point station runs on conventional unelectrified 4 ft 8 1 2 in 1 435 mm standard gauge rail Schedules call for trains to operate at up to 70 miles per hour 110 km h but certain segments in particular the Transbay Tube are designed for 80 mph 130 km h operation when making up delays 5 125 8 Rapid transit trains have 4 10 cars the maximum length of 710 feet 216 m being the longest of any metro system in the United States and extending slightly beyond the 700 foot 213 m platforms 126 Cars are 10 5 feet 3 2 m wide the maximum gradient is four percent and the minimum curve radius is 394 feet 120 m 127 The combination of unique loading gauges and unusual rail technologies has complicated maintenance and increased cost of the system as rolling stock requires custom wheelsets brake systems and power systems 122 128 Many of the original 1970s era stations especially the aerial stations feature simple Brutalist architecture but newer stations are a mix of Neomodern and Postmodern architecture The additional double tracked four mile long upper deck of the Market Street Subway and its four underground stations were built by BART for Muni Metro Lines Edit The routes run on track segments lines which are internally but not commonly known by letters 5 129 130 Line Endpoints Opened Right of wayHeavy railA Line Oakland Wye Fremont September 11 1972 Former Western Pacific Railroad right of way UP Oakland Subdivision tunnel near the Oakland WyeC Line Rockridge Pittsburg Bay Point May 21 1973 to Concord December 16 1995 to North Concord Martinez December 7 1996 to Pittsburg Bay Point SR 24 median Berkeley Hills Tunnel former Sacramento Northern Railway right of way SR 4 medianK Line Oakland Wye Rockridge September 11 1972 to MacArthur May 21 1973 to Rockridge Tunnel under Broadway SR 24 medianL Line Bay Fair Dublin Pleasanton May 10 1997 Median of I 238 median of I 580M Line Oakland Wye Daly City Yard north of Colma November 5 1973 Daly City Montgomery Street September 16 1974 Montgomery Street Oakland Wye December 9 1988 to Daly City Yard Elevated above 5th and 7th streets Transbay Tube tunnel under Market Street and Mission Street former Southern Pacific Railroad right of way SF amp SJ R Line MacArthur Richmond January 29 1973 Elevated above Martin Luther King Jr Way tunnel under Adeline St and Shattuck Ave former Santa Fe right of wayS Line Fremont Berryessa North San Jose March 25 2017 to Warm Springs South Fremont June 13 2020 to Berryessa North San Jose 9 Tunnel under Fremont Central Park former Western Pacific Railroad right of way San Jose Branch W Line Daly City Yard Millbrae February 24 1996 to Colma June 22 2003 to Millbrae Former Southern Pacific Railroad right of way SF amp SJ shared Caltrain right of wayY Line W Line San Francisco International Airport June 22 2003 Elevated wye into San Francisco International AirportLight railE Line Pittsburg Bay Point Antioch May 26 2018 SR 4 medianAutomated guideway transit AGT H Line Coliseum Oakland International Airport November 22 2014 Mostly elevated above Hegenberger Road depressed section below Doolittle Drive Automation Edit BART was one of the first U S rail transit systems of any size to be substantially automated Routing and dispatching of trains and adjustments for schedule recovery are controlled by a combination of computer and human supervision at BART s Operations Control Center OCC and headquarters at the Kaiser Center in Downtown Oakland Station to station train movement including speed control and maintenance of separation between successive trains is entirely automatic under normal operation the operator s routine responsibilities being issuing announcements closing the doors after station stops and monitoring the track ahead for hazards In unusual circumstances the operator controls the train manually at reduced speed 131 Parking Edit Many BART stations offer parking however underpricing causes station parking lots to overflow in the morning 132 Pervasive congestion and underpricing forces some to drive to distant stations in search of parking 133 BART operates Parking Lots at 36 stations and offers parking passes for designated spots at many stations 134 BART hosts car sharing locations at many stations a program introduced by City CarShare Riders can transfer from BART and complete their journeys by car BART offers long term airport parking through a third party vendor 135 at most East Bay stations Travelers must make an online reservation in advance and pay the daily fee of 5 before they can leave their cars at the BART parking lot Parking at stations in Santa Clara County Milpitas and Berryessa North San Jose is managed by Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority rather than BART Accessibility Edit All BART trains have dedicated spaces for wheelchair users and every station has accessible elevators 136 Estimated train arrival times and service announcements are both displayed on platform level screens and announced audibly over the public address system Station platforms are equipped with tactile paving to aid those with visual impairments and Braille tactile signs are present throughout stations 137 Platform elevators Edit The elevator faregate on the Embarcadero station BART platform installed in December 2021 At some stations the elevator to the platform which is inside the paid area is accessed from an unpaid area of the station To enter the BART system at one of these stations passengers using the elevator must first pass through a faregate into the paid area and then exit back through the swing gate adjacent to the station agent booth before taking the elevator to the platform To exit the system from one of these stations passengers must do the reverse take the elevator from the platform to the concourse level enter the paid area through the swing gate and then process their ticket at a faregate to exit the paid area once again Station agents may be able to assist upon request 136 The configuration of these stations enables fare evasion and causes confusion for passengers 138 As of 2020 eighteen stations a had a platform elevator outside of the paid area 139 Of these three stations b had ticket processing machines near the elevators that allowed elevator users to avoid having to enter then exit then re enter the paid area however these did nothing to deter fare evasion 136 BART has begun to correct this issue at stations either by expanding the paid area on the concourse level or by installing a single accessible faregate in front of the elevator doors 138 139 By December 2021 the number of stations with elevators outside the paid area had been reduced to eight c 140 Seven of these stations are planned to have elevator faregates installed in 2022 while the paid area on the concourse level at 19th Street Oakland is being expanded to include the elevator as part of an ongoing renovation 140 141 142 Cell phone and Wi Fi Edit In 2004 BART became the first transit system in the United States to offer cellular telephone communication to passengers of all major wireless carriers on its trains underground 143 Service was made available for customers of Verizon Wireless Sprint Nextel AT amp T Mobility and T Mobile in and between the four San Francisco Market Street stations from Civic Center to Embarcadero In 2009 service was expanded to include the Transbay Tube thus providing continuous cellular coverage between West Oakland and Balboa Park 144 In 2010 service was expanded to all underground stations in Oakland 19th Street 12th Street Oakland City Center and Lake Merritt 145 In 2007 BART ran a beta test of Wi Fi Internet access for travelers It initially included the four San Francisco downtown stations Embarcadero Montgomery Powell and Civic Center It included above ground testing to trains at BART s Hayward Test Track The testing and deployment was extended into the underground interconnecting tubes between the four downtown stations and further The successful demonstration provided for a ten year contract with WiFi Rail Inc for the services throughout the BART right of way 146 In 2008 the Wi Fi service was expanded to include the Transbay Tube 147 BART terminated the relationship with Wi Fi Rail in December 2014 citing that WiFi Rail had not submitted an adequate financial or technical plan for completing the network throughout the BART system 148 In 2011 during the Charles Hill killing and aftermath BART disabled cell phone service to hamper demonstrators 149 The ensuing controversy drew widespread coverage 150 that raised legal questions about free speech rights of protesters and the federal telecommunications laws that relate to passengers 151 In response BART released an official policy on cutting off cell phone service 152 Organization and management Edit2012 statisticsNumber of vehicles 670Initial system cost 1 6 billionEquivalent cost in 2004 dollars replacement cost 15 billionHourly passenger capacity 15 000Maximum daily capacity 360 000Average weekday ridership 365 510Annual operating revenue 379 10 millionAnnual expenses 619 10 millionAnnual profits losses 240 00 million Rail cost passenger mile excluding capital costs 0 332Governance Edit The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District is a special district consisting of Alameda County Contra Costa County and the City and County of San Francisco San Mateo County which hosts six BART stations and Santa Clara County which hosts two are not part of the BART District A nine member elected Board of Directors represents nine districts BART has its own police force 153 While the district includes all of the cities and communities in its jurisdiction some of these cities do not have stations on the BART system This has caused tensions among property owners in cities like Livermore who pay BART taxes but must travel outside the city to receive BART service 154 In areas like Fremont the majority of commuters do not commute in the direction that BART would take them many Fremonters commute to San Jose citation needed This would be remedied with the completion of the Silicon Valley BART extension Phase I of the extension opened on June 13 2020 giving San Jose its first BART station Berryessa North San Jose station Budget Edit In 2005 BART required nearly 300 million in funds after fares About 37 of the costs went to maintenance 29 to actual transportation operations 24 to general administration 8 to police services and 4 to construction and engineering In 2005 53 of the budget was derived from fares 32 from taxes and 15 from other sources including advertising station retail space leasing and parking fees 155 BART reported a farebox recovery ratio of 75 67 in February 2016 156 up from 2012 s 68 2 157 BART train operators and station agents have a maximum salary of 62 000 per year with an average of 17 000 in overtime pay 158 BART management claimed that in 2013 union train operators and station agents averaged about 71 000 in base salary and 11 000 in overtime and pay a 92 monthly fee from that for health insurance 159 Incidents and controversies EditSee also History of BART Incidents and accidents BART Police shootings Edit Oscar Grant III Edit Main article Shooting of Oscar Grant On January 1 2009 a BART Police officer Johannes Mehserle fatally shot Oscar Grant III 160 161 Eyewitnesses gathered direct evidence of the shooting with video cameras which were later submitted to and disseminated by media outlets and watched hundreds of thousands of times 162 in the days following the shooting Both peaceful and violent demonstrations occurred protesting the shooting 163 BART held multiple public meetings to ease tensions led by BART Director Carole Ward Allen 164 who called on the BART Board to hire two independent auditors to investigate the shooting and to provide recommendations to the board regarding BART Police misconduct 165 Director Ward Allen established BART s first Police Department Review Committee and worked with Assemblyman Sandre Swanson to pass AB 1586 in the California State Legislature which enforced civilian oversight of the BART Police Department 166 BART Director Lynette Sweet said that BART has not handled this situation correctly 167 and called for the BART police chief and general manager to step down but only one other BART Director Tom Radulovich supported such action 168 Mehserle was arrested and charged with murder to which he pleaded not guilty Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris filed a US 25 million wrongful death claim against the district on behalf of Grant s daughter and girlfriend 169 Mehserle s trial was subsequently moved to Los Angeles following concerns that he would be unable to get a fair trial in Alameda County On July 8 2010 Mehserle was found guilty on a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter 170 He was released on parole on June 13 2011 171 Charles Hill Edit On July 3 2011 an officer of the BART Police shot and killed Charles Hill at Civic Center Station in San Francisco Hill had thrown a bottle at the officers and was in the process of throwing a knife at them from a distance of about 15 feet when the first shot was fired 172 On August 12 2011 BART shut down cellphone services on the network for three hours in an effort to hamper possible protests against the shooting 173 174 and to keep communications away from protesters at the Civic Center station in San Francisco 175 The shutdown caught the attention of state senator Leland Yee and international media as well as drawing comparisons to the internet shutdowns during the Egyptian revolution earlier that year 176 Antonette Bryant the union president for BART stated that BART have lost our confidence and are putting rider and employee safety at risk 177 Members of Anonymous broke into BART s website and posted names phone numbers addresses and e mail information on the Anonymous website 178 179 On August 15 2011 there was more disruption in service at BART stations in downtown San Francisco 180 181 182 The San Francisco Examiner reported that the protests were a result of the shootings including that of Oscar Grant 183 184 On August 29 2011 a coalition of nine public interest groups led by Public Knowledge filed an Emergency Petition asking the U S Federal Communications Commission FCC to declare that the actions taken by the Bay Area Rapid Transit District BART on August 11 2011 violated the Communications Act of 1934 as amended when it deliberately interfered with access to Commercial Mobile Radio Service CMRS by the public and that local law enforcement has no authority to suspend or deny CMRS or to order CMRS providers to suspend or deny service absent a properly obtained order from the Commission a state commission of appropriate jurisdiction or a court of law with appropriate jurisdiction 185 186 In December 2011 BART adopted a new Cell Service Interruption Policy that only allows shutdowns of cell phone services within BART facilities in the most extraordinary circumstances that threaten the safety of District passengers employees and other members of public the destruction of District property or the substantial disruption of public transit service 187 According to a spokesperson for BART under the new policy the wireless phone system would not be turned off under circumstances similar to those in August 2011 Instead police officers would arrest individuals who break the law 188 In February 2012 the San Francisco District Attorney concluded that the BART Police Officer that shot and killed Charles Hill at the Civic Center BART station the previous July acted lawfully in self defense and would not face charges for the incident 189 In March 2012 the FCC requested public comment on the question of whether or when the police and other government officials can intentionally interrupt cellphone and Internet service to protect public safety 188 A federal lawsuit filed against BART by Charles Hill s brother was dismissed in 2013 172 The federal judge concluded that a reasonable officer in that situation could believe that he was in danger of being hit by a knife after having had a bottle thrown at him 172 The lawyers of Hill s family did not dispute that he had thrown a knife at the officer but argued that both officers should have done more to deescalate the situation 172 Worker fatalities Edit 1979 fatal electrical fire Edit Further information Transbay Tube January 1979 fire In January 1979 an electrical fire occurred on a train as it was passing through the Transbay Tube One firefighter Lt William Elliott 50 of the Oakland Fire Department was killed in the effort to extinguish the blaze Since then safety regulations have been updated 190 James Strickland Edit On October 14 2008 track inspector James Strickland was struck and killed by a train as he was walking along a section of track between the Concord and Pleasant Hill BART stations Strickland s death started an investigation into BART s safety alert procedures 191 At the time of the accident BART had assigned trains headed in opposite directions to a shared track for routine maintenance BART came under further fire in February 2009 for allegedly delaying payment of death benefits to Strickland s family 192 October 2013 incident Edit On the afternoon of October 19 2013 a BART employee and a contractor who were inspecting tracks were struck and killed near Walnut Creek by a train being moved for routine maintenance A labor strike by BART s two major unions was underway at the time which caused BART to use an undertrained operator Instead of the usual 14 weeks of the training the operator only received four The BART trainer was not in the cab with the operator at the time of impact but was instead in the passenger compartment The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that the accident occurred because BART facilitated access to the railway line 193 BART was fined 600 000 for the incident 194 Crime Edit In mid 2017 BART came under criticism for refusing to publicly release video evidence of crimes committed at Oakland stations That year in at least three incidents groups of young people had boarded stopped trains and attacked and robbed train riders 195 In response to the criticism a BART manager argued that to release these videos would create a high level of racially insensitive commentary toward the district and in addition it would create a racial bias in the riders against minorities on the trains According to an internal memo the agency decided to not issue a press release about one of the cases where a woman had her phone stolen by one of a group of teenagers in order to avoid having BART look crime ridden and because it would unfairly affect and characterize riders of color leading to sweeping generalizations in media reports 195 A spokesman also stated that state laws about juvenile police records prohibited BART from releasing surveillance video 195 In 2018 BART released surveillance video from one of the 2017 incidents showing as summarized by KRON4 the moments leading up to a mob style attack on a BART train with about 40 teens jumping the fare gates and pushing through the emergency gates at the station as an overwhelmed station agent calls for help 196 BART stated that two juveniles and an 18 year old had been arrested for the incident with the 18 year old ending up serving one year in jail 196 In September 2017 six victims of the robberies assaults filed suit against BART for gross negligence claiming BART did not provide adequate security for its riders 197 In January 2020 two passengers affected by the same incident lost their lawsuits one of them on the grounds that she had been attacked on the platform rather than on the train outside of BART s common carrier duties 198 199 On July 22 2018 a man fatally stabbed 18 year old Nia Wilson with a knife as she exited a train car at the MacArthur station 200 This was the third homicide at a BART station within five days 201 In June 2019 the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury released a report documenting a 128 increase in thefts on BART between 2014 and 2018 and an 83 increase in aggravated assault during the same time period 202 References Edit Transit Ridership Report Third Quarter 2022 PDF American Public Transportation Association November 22 2022 Retrieved February 1 2023 Transit Ridership Report Fourth Quarter 2021 PDF American Public Transportation Association March 10 2022 Retrieved June 7 2022 Fracassa Dominic McBride Ashley July 25 2019 BART selects Robert Powers as new general manager San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved July 25 2019 New Train Car Project San Francisco Bay Area December 29 2020 Retrieved March 28 2021 a b c d e f g h i j k l BART System Facts San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District Retrieved April 8 2021 BART returns to near regular service starting 8 2 21 Bay Area Rapid Transit Press release August 2 2021 Retrieved December 17 2021 a b BART Car Types Bay Area Rapid Transit Retrieved April 8 2021 a b BART Sustainable Communities Operations Analysis PDF San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District June 2013 p 23 Retrieved February 5 2014 Certain sections of the BART system are designed for 80 mph operations however the maximum operating speed BART currently uses today is 70 mph It is unlikely that 80 mph operating speeds will be used again due to the increase in motor wear and propulsion failures at the higher rate There are also higher impacts on track maintenance In addition the 80 mph segments tend to be short and the higher speed benefits are limited as train speeds become inconsistent a b Glover Julian May 19 2020 BART announces service start date for long awaited Milpitas San Jose Berryessa stations ABC7 News Retrieved May 19 2020 a b BART schedule change begins 2 14 22 extending service to midnight on Sundays Press release Bay Area Rapid Transit District January 10 2022 a b c d e Every day until 9pm 5 Line Service PDF Bay Area Rapid Transit District 2022 a b c New Train Car Project Bay Area Rapid Transit District Retrieved January 29 2018 a b February 11 schedule change impacts weekdays and Sundays Press release San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District January 15 2019 a b BART Schedules PDF San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District February 14 2022 Retrieved August 3 2022 Transit Information Late Night Bus Services PDF Metropolitan Transportation Commission May 24 2018 Early Bird Express PDF San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District 2019 EBX June 2019 Service Improvements PDF San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District June 4 2019 p 12 Early Bird Express service changes coming 12 16 Press release San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District December 10 2019 a b c d Transit Center Maps and Information Alameda Contra Costa Transit District A History of BART The Concept is Born Bay Area Rapid Transit Retrieved October 8 2019 Healy Michael C 2016 BART the dramatic history of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system Berkeley California ISBN 978 1 59714 370 7 OCLC 948549791 History of BART to the South Bay San Jose Mercury News March 12 2013 Retrieved October 22 2013 A History of BART The Concept is Born Bart gov Retrieved October 22 2013 a b BART Chronology January 1947 March 2009 PDF San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District March 2009 Archived from the original PDF on October 13 2013 See BART Composite Report prepared by Parsons Brinkerhof Tutor Bechtel 1962 A History of BART the Concept is Born Retrieved December 1 2018 A History of BART The Project Begins Bay Area Rapid Transit Retrieved December 1 2018 W S Homburger The impact of a new rapid transit system on traffic on parallel highway facilities Transportation Planning and Technology 4 3 Automatic Train Control in Rail Rapid Transit PDF United States Congress Office of Technology Assessment May 1 1976 p 46 Retrieved March 15 2017 When BART reaches its full level of service headways will be reduced to 2 minutes in San Francisco and 6 minutes elsewhere during peak periods BART Not a Moment Too Soon Los Angeles Times September 13 1972 Retrieved March 2 2011 BART First in Operation 2nd great subway boom under way in many cities The Bulletin Retrieved August 23 2009 Gillam Jerry November 15 1972 Safe Automated BART Train Controls Doubted Los Angeles Times Retrieved March 2 2011 Lembke Daryl November 16 1972 BART Manager Denies System Was Overcharged by Designers Los Angeles Times Retrieved March 2 2011 Stephen Unger April 29 2010 The BART Case The Online Ethics Center for engineering and science Archived from the original on July 28 2020 Retrieved March 15 2017 Troubles Beset Transit System in San Francisco Bay Area The New York Times December 9 1972 Retrieved March 15 2017 Bill Northwood November 29 1972 What is BART and why are we saying such terrible things about it KPFA Pacifica Radio p 2 min 00 sec Retrieved March 15 2017 Automatic Train Control in Rail Rapid Transit PDF United States Congress Office of Technology Assessment May 1 1976 pp 45 49 Retrieved March 15 2017 Investigations of BART were undertaken by the California Senate the California Legislative Analyst the California Public Utilities Commission and the National Transportation Safety Board The cause of the accident was traced to a faulty crystal oscillator Peter Sheerin October 1 1990 Bill Wattenburg s Background BART Bay Area Rapid Transit System Retrieved March 15 2017 Wattenburg challenged the credentials of three successive chief engineers at BART All of them left or were fired Bigger bugs in BART PDF IEEE Spectrum Magazine March 1 1973 p 36 Retrieved March 15 2017 David Hammond BARTD s assistant general manager submitted his resignation Legislative Analyst s Office 75th anniversary Legislative Analyst s Office LAO of the State of California May 25 2013 Retrieved March 15 2017 After the state legislature held a month long series of hearings on the financial mismanagement at Bay Area Rapid Transit BART Alan Post recommended the firing of BART s general manager B R Stokes ex BART general manager dies San Francisco Chronicle May 25 2013 Retrieved March 15 2017 BART officials had to ask the Legislature for more money but the price was high Nearly all of the Bay Area s legislators said they would oppose giving BART money unless Mr Stokes resigned He quit May 24 1974 Bill Wattenburg February 15 1974 BART Countdown to San Francisco Commonwealth Club of California p 28 min 30 sec Retrieved March 15 2017 BART historical timeline PDF BART Retrieved March 15 2017 November 5 1974 Nine member Board of Directors elected to replace 12 member appointed board Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District 1970 71 Annual Report PDF Golden Gate Bridge Highway and Transportation District Retrieved October 8 2019 New BART service to Oakland International Airport now open Bay Area Rapid Transit BART November 21 2014 Retrieved December 2 2014 Celebrating 40 Years of Service 1972 2012 Forty BART Achievements Over the Years PDF Bay Area Rapid Transit BART 2012 Retrieved December 2 2014 BART delays loom for downtown San Jose BART timetable for downtown San Jose service now seen as 2030 San Jose Mercury News September 24 2019 Retrieved October 10 2019 At one point political and business leaders had anticipated BART service beginning in 2026 in downtown San Jose but the new estimates from VTA point to a service launch more in the 2029 or 2030 time frame Cabanatuan Michael May 24 2018 BART board votes down extension to Livermore San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved October 8 2019 Cabanatuan Michael June 22 2007 BART S New Vision More Bigger Faster San Francisco Chronicle Archived from the original on October 10 2007 Retrieved October 26 2007 BART Metro Vision Update PDF Bay Area Rapid Transit BART April 25 2013 Archived from the original PDF on July 19 2014 Retrieved July 15 2014 Fortson Jobina November 15 2018 BART considering 2nd Transbay Tube 24 hour service ABC 7 KGO TV Retrieved November 18 2018 Bizjak Tony February 20 2019 How trains under the bay not high speed rail may connect Sacramento and San Francisco Sacramento Bee Retrieved February 28 2019 Cuff Denis May 29 2007 BART board wants to lessen waits Contra Costa Times Retrieved October 26 2007 Good move by BART Contra Costa Times October 1 2007 Retrieved October 26 2007 Bay Area Rapid Transit Off peak service reductions began Monday September 14th Retrieved May 30 2013 a b Dennis Cuff July 10 2008 BART goes solar at Orinda station Contra Costa Times Retrieved July 13 2008 Santa Clara VTA receives state funding to expand BART facilities RT amp S December 7 2012 BART add fare machines inside fare zones will finally start accepting credit cards San Francisco Examiner March 15 2019 a b BART completes systemwide conversion to Clipper only sales Press release San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District December 14 2020 Clipper card now supported on iPhone and Apple Watch BART Retrieved September 2 2022 Earthquake Safety Program Technical Information Bay Area Rapid Transit District Retrieved November 8 2010 Earthquake Safety Program Bay Area Rapid Transit District February 11 2013 Retrieved February 5 2014 Digging Deeper Crews Rework Deep Welds on BART s Seismic Retrofit 2021 03 22 Engineering News Record www enr com Retrieved February 10 2023 Transbay Tube Retrofit bart gov www bart gov Retrieved February 10 2023 McDermid Riley November 17 2017 No turkey for you BART says new trains won t be running by Thanksgiving after all San Francisco Business Times Retrieved January 19 2018 U S Subway Car Design Behind the Curve www planetizen com Retrieved September 15 2022 Chinn Jerold January 29 2015 Long wait ahead for longer BART trains San Francisco Bay Area Retrieved September 29 2015 BART explains it has total of 662 trains but about 535 are in service during peak commute times about 86 5 percent of its fleet BART said it runs more of its fleet than any other major transit agency despite having the oldest trains in the nation Cabanatuan Michael April 10 2010 BART can t keep pace with rising crush loads SFGate East Contra Costa BART Extension eBART Implementation Bay Area Rapid Transit BART May 19 2015 Retrieved August 9 2015 a b Onsite testing begins for BART s first new train car www bart gov April 6 2016 Retrieved April 22 2016 Stadler Rail delivers trains to Oakland Stadler Rail April 26 2014 Archived from the original on March 4 2016 Retrieved August 9 2015 Richman Josh May 10 2012 BART board approves contract for 410 new train cars San Jose Mercury News Retrieved May 11 2012 Bowen Douglas John May 11 2012 BART taps Bombardier U S content at issue Railway Age Retrieved May 11 2012 Board Meeting Agenda PDF San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District November 21 2013 pp 91 92 Retrieved December 5 2013 Rodriguez Joe Fitzgerald November 7 2017 BART s new train cars fail regulatory test possibly delaying rollout San Francisco Examiner Retrieved November 8 2017 Cabanatuan Michael January 18 2018 New BART rail cars approved for service San Francisco Chronicle Brinklow Adam January 19 2018 New BART cars go into service today Curbed SF Retrieved January 19 2018 a b Clipper Fares PDF San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District July 1 2022 FY19 Short Range Transit Plan and Capital Improvement Program PDF San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District October 2018 BART Board approves two year budget focused on rider experience Press release San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District June 9 2022 a b c BART Basics Guide PDF San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District August 2021 Cabanatuan Michael August 5 2022 This little known BART fare can cost you 6 70 even if you don t step foot on a train San Francisco Chronicle Archived from the original on August 6 2022 Bartlett Amanda December 6 2022 A new policy change will eliminate this annoying BART fee San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved January 6 2022 a b c Discounts San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District Retrieved August 10 2022 Walsh Eli August 19 2022 Pilot program launches for transit pass compatible with all Bay Area transit agencies KTVU Clipper BayPass pilot program launched transit pass to be used on all Bay Area public transit agencies CBS News August 17 2022 Rodda R Scott July 1993 Evolving Fare Technologies PDF Workshop on Transit Fare Policy and Management Research Needs and Priorities Woods Hole Massachusetts Transportation Research Board p 38 Ticket Machines Treat You Farely Oakland Tribune September 10 1972 p 26 via Newspapers com Healy Michael C 2016 BART The Dramatic History of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System Heyday pp 222 225 ISBN 978 1 59714 370 7 Fleishman Daniel Shaw Nicola Joshi Ashok Freeze Richard Oram Richard 1996 Chapter 6 Electronic Fare Payment Options PDF TCRP Report 10 Fare Policies Structures and Technologies Transportation Research Board p 93 Carroll Jon December 6 2000 Tiny Tickets Ha Ha Ha Ha The San Francisco Chronicle Retrieved August 10 2022 BART completes systemwide conversion to Clipper only sales bart gov www bart gov Retrieved November 23 2022 Clipper and Pay by Phone San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District Retrieved August 10 2022 Supply chain woes MTC BART encourage adding Clipper card on mobile phones Mass Transit Magazine October 19 2022 Retrieved November 23 2022 BART enhances EZ Rider card with parking payment option bart gov www bart gov Retrieved May 9 2021 BART Phasing Out EZ Rider Passes in Switch to Clipper Streetsblog San Francisco November 10 2010 Retrieved May 9 2021 Gordon Rachel August 4 2009 BART starts accepting TransLink fare cards SFGATE Retrieved May 9 2021 Baldassari Erin June 22 2017 BART 50 cent surcharge for paper tickets expanded discount for youth The Mercury News Retrieved April 29 2020 a b c Total Annual Exits FY1973 FY2017 xls BART gov San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District 2017 BART can t keep pace with rising crush loads SFGate Retrieved March 2 2017 October BART ridership soaring BART Retrieved October 18 2012 Uber and Lyft use at SFO increases six fold in two years BART loses ridership December 5 2016 Retrieved December 8 2016 BART officials told the agency s Board of Directors that increased Uber and Lyft ridership led to less passengers taking BART in 2016 BART s overall ridership rate of growth rapidly slowed according to a staff presentation In October overall ridership was down to 438 000 trips for the average weekday 1 7 percent less than the same time the year prior Nationwide Transit Ridership Falls 2 9 in June PDF Retrieved November 21 2019 Ripple effect of Metro s troubles plummeting bus ridership across the region February 20 2016 Retrieved December 8 2016 falling bus ridership in the Washington region mirrors a national trend that experts say is due to a variety of factors including changing job markets falling gas prices and the growing popularity of other transportation options such as biking and app based services such as Uber and Lyft link, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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