Thanks for riding BART!

I've been riding BART for 30 years. Yes, there are delays from time to time, not everyone gets a parking space right up front of the station, and yes, sometimes, there are delays because of police/medicalemergencies. (If I drove to work everyday, I was guaranteed bumper-to-bumper traffic jams, accideents, stalls, and increasily road rage on a daily basis).

We were once holding at West Oakland station at 10PM for more than 4 minutes and certainly many passengers were getting agitated when the train operator didn't make any annoucement. Suddenly, three officers quickly entered our train car and restrained a passenger and removed a handgun from his waistband. The police officer said he had robbed a woman at gunpoint near the Embarcadero and a witness followed him into the BART station and jump onto an eastbound train. At least those in earshot of the officer's remarks understood why there wasn't any annoucement - it would have put the passengers and the officers at risk. Thanks to everyone involved in getting that bad guy off the train.

BART is a real life-link to the bay area. The rails were heavily damaged near Rockridge in the 1991 Oakland Hills fire and service was brought back up in 24 hours. BART suffered minimal damage after the 1989 earthquake and was running 24/7 for 2 months. Finally, thanks for adding more train cars immediately after the 880/580 freeway collapse - it gave many bay area residents an opportunity to take alternate commute service.

For all those grumpies out there, it isn't as bad as you say.

Thank you BART employees.

You're welcome.