just wondering what their job is supposed to be exactly? sometimes i see them giving people directioms to points of interest, but most of the time it seems like they are just sitting there doing not much.

do they take out the trash or enforce passenger safety or system violations or anything?

do if you accidentally drop your phone on the tracks? I'm asking this because I read that reason why someone became roadkill when they were hit by a MUNI train at Castro station last night was because he dropped his phone on the tracks, jumped down to get it, and didn't see a MUNI train coming at the person until it was too late. So what should someone do if they accidentally drop their phone on the tracks at a BART station, especially at a station like Embarcadero where trains are coming every 2 minutes on average during rush hour?

For a high-speed rail, the system really slogs. On a commute from North Berkeley to the SF Financial District, during prime commute hours, it can often be faster to take AC Transit than to take BART. So a bus, which makes more stops, and travels on surface streets and then congested I-80, is faster.

A trip from North Berkeley BART to the Fremont BART station, 34.5 miles by car, 29.7 by BART, is 43 minutes by car, and 51 minutes by BART!!! How does this qualify as a high speed rail? What gives???

BART isn't planning this time to raise fares or and cut service this time to close a $10 million budget deficit.
Sounds too good to be true right?

BART plan for dealing with $10M deficit has no fare hikes or service cuts

I'm considering moving to Berkeley, currently live in the city and take Bart to school everyday. I like the monthly muni/Bart pass, and will miss it if I move. I'm not a big fan of the going to the machine everyday to reload money.

Anyone in the East Bay use something else (ticket) wise when they ride Bart into the city or wherever else?

Heads up to everyone - saw a flyer on BART the other day about a protest at Embarcadero station this coming Thursday at 3:30 pm.

Their website www.oaklandforjustice.org says:

"If you normally take BART during afternoon rush hour and cannot or do not wish to participate in the action on April 8th, find the information you need to make alternate plans for public transportation or ride sharing at 511.org."

Alternate Travel Arrangements:
Muni (SFMTA): www.tinyurl.com/yl8efxc
Transbay bus: www.tinyurl.com/yj4ogmh
Ferry service: www.tinyurl.com/ylh6nw3

Looks like 4 cars got broken into today at the North Concord Bart station, one being mine. Wish BART would put in cameras. Will say the cops that were on duty were extremely courteous, and made me feel a bit better. According to the cops, this happening quite frequently. Hopefully they will get a new chief in there at some point, and get things rolling, filling the open positions, so there are enough officers to patrol the parking lots as well as the increased train patrols, and allow them to actually do their jobs.

Since the dumb-ness continues. I'm really tired of people who ride up the escalators and cut in front of people when there is no gap. More often they don't look, or only look to see they aren't actually physically running into people. Never mind it usually startles the person and causes a brief backup if there's a collision of bags and/or feet.

Don't know if this has been posted here or not, but I just found a couple of fun films about the constuction of BART on their website. Worth checking out....

Has anyone else using EZ RIDER been overcharged / double-charged recently. I looked in my history and I was charged twice in one day for an autoload (no, I didn't use up $48 worth of credit on my humble commute - the same $5 commute I ride every day).

I've contacted BART customer service but haven't heard anything yet.

This seems to have happened at the same time that I noticed the new "Translink" sensors on the faregates.

Does anyone have any information about this?

Thanks

I got a picture of the broken coupler, it's at BART Rage Flickr

Sorry it took so long but we are back up. We have lost about 3 months of data. We are working on better ways to protect this site from malicious users. We will update as soon as we are able to come up with a solution.

If you registered after Nov 19 2009, you will have to re-register. We apologize for this inconvenience.

Serious delays and a train was taken out of service on my way to Berkeley a few nights ago. Coupled with a cold, crowded and cramped platform, things were pretty depressing. Especially after watching 2 more trains go by, totally packed.

SF Gate article
Thursday, November 19, 2009

BART director Tom Radulovich , who represents San Francisco,did not ask for a raise at Thursday's marathon of a BART Board of Directors meeting -- but he did suggest that board members deserve one for the long hours and hard work they've put in this year.

And he was the lone member to vote against a proposal to have the board waive its annual cost-of-living increase, which would have amounted to about $39 a month.

"I feel like we've done a lot more work this year," he said. "It's becoming like another full-time job."