Taking the Train #12.5: A Brief Note on BART's Progress
Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, has long been a source of public complaint, but in many ways, the agency is now moving in the right direction
It’s been another busy week. I spent the past six or so days in my old stomping grounds (California), so I just have a blip of a post this time around. For more content, I encourage any readers who may have missed last week’s lengthy issue on Los Angeles rail to check it out.
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I spent the bulk my trip this week in the city of my upbringing, San Francisco, where I reconnected with an old friend—MUNI—and finally reacquainted myself with the regional transit system, BART, which I used shamefully few times growing up.
BART, or Bay Area Rapid Transit, is one of the 20+ transit agencies that operate across the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s the most wide-reaching of any of these agencies, but as my adventures rarely took me outside SF proper, I had rarely used it. (Below is an unofficial map of the region’s many transit operators).
Ever since I was still living in the Bay Area, BART stories had been overwhelmingly negative. Was it a useful service? Absolutely. But even up until recently, many riders have voiced concerns over safety, public drug use, and cleanliness. This is not a unique problem. And a sizable portion of it—whether justified or not—is associated with homelessness, something that the Bay Area, along with Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, and many other big cities, struggles with.
Public spaces attract the homeless. Public transit is no exception. Train stations (and the train cars themselves) are sources of shelter for those who have no access to it otherwise. Especially in cities where designated homeless shelters are overcrowded and/or dangerous, transit stations offer relative safety and a respite from the elements. That said, most rail passengers aren’t so keen on public transit becoming makeshift housing, no matter the context.
For BART, homelessness is the issue that riders complain of most, claiming the agency isn’t doing enough to address it. The omnipresence of homelessness in the stations and train cars is a massive thorn in the side of an agency still working to regain lost ridership from the Covid pandemic. Some argue the agency should patrol ticket gates more rigidly to restrict homeless entry. Others fault the cities BART operates in, citing inadequate services for the unhoused. I generally fall into the latter camp, but I’ll save that for another day when I have more time.
As I said earlier, BART’s situation is not special. On the other side of the country, the constant presence of homeless individuals in New York City’s subways has confounded elected officials, city planners, and agency workers. No amount of attempted problem-solving has alleviated the issue. Yet what I reaffirmed with BART this week was that these issues don’t define a transit system.
I’m aware of the dangers of a single story, but I must say, my weeklong experience with BART (and MUNI, for that matter) was overwhelmingly pleasant. During the day and evening, trains arrived on time, hardly ever stalled in tunnels, and most of all, they were clean. I’d be lying if I claimed to have not observed homelessness on various trips, but these moments were a minor part of the overall experience. I got where I needed to go (both within and outside SF proper) efficiently and affordably. And that can’t be discounted.
BART has also been making wonderful strides in other directions. Recently, the agency implemented new, “Fleet of the Future” train cars under budget, replacing outdated vehicles, and saving nearly $400 million for other projects and operations. (I reported more in-depth on this development a couple months ago). These upgrades—financed by voter-approved government funding—pave the way for smoother, cleaner, and more comfortable transportation.1 They also promise greater public safety; the new train cars possess more advanced surveillance cameras. And that’s not all.
BART’s old train cars are being reused in innovative ways. In an effort to reduce needless waste, BART held a competition to see how individuals and organizations could repurpose decommissioned rail cars. The winners would then receive the legacy rolling stock to follow through on their ideas. BART recently announced a number of winning plans, which included entertainment venues, a modern, space-age cabin, a bike shop, a community event space, and even a training facility for California’s Hayward Fire Department.
This competition is a fun and imaginative way to reduce waste. It won’t solve homelessness, nor will it curb the presence of homeless individuals in train stations, but that’s a bigger issue that relies on government assistance and public support at the ballot box. In the meantime, steady operations and cleaner infrastructure should motivate riders to give BART another go. It may not be perfect, but the agency’s making substantial progress towards a new age of better service.
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p.s. Here’s a photo of me on San Francisco’s MUNI F line cable car, photo courtesy of my dad. I believe this was an old model out of Washington, D.C.
BART awarded key state grant to fund more Fleet of the Future cars. (2020, April 21). Bay Area Rapid Transit. https://www.bart.gov/news/articles/2020/news20200421-0
Hi Ian: Short but sweet, as was the nice time spent with you and your Dad last week--capped by a Giants victory