Category: BART

UPDATE 9:45 a.m. Reports from Twittersphere, from irate commuters like you:

@MrBShah worst case scenario. Nighmareish BART delays and my battery is about to die. Happy Friday! #shouldhavetakencaltrain

@keralajane Our @rideact driver said AC transit is trying to get more transbay buses out to accommodate commuters stranded by #BART FYI

@SJLandes I went home and drove down the peninsula to work… so much for saving the environment with public transportation today. :o/ (Ed note: one of us drove, too, DON’T TELL ANYONE.)

ABC7’s @amyhollyfield via @superxolo MacArthur Bart platform is PACKED:

Are you commuting via BART from the East Bay to San Francisco today? Then you must have seen the delays after the tube wreck early this morning. According to SFGate, “a maintenance truck collided with a rail-grinder working in the tube around 2 a.m. and damaged 380 feet of the electric line that powers BART trains.” No one was hurt.

BART had to run all trains on a single track while crews replaced the damaged sections of the third rail, causing major delays on all four transbay lines.

(Rest of the story on SFGate.)

How was your commute on BART this morning? Let us know via @bartdiaries!

Photo by Andrionni Ribo

Last week, a thought occurred to us: What if the agency that runs BART took its turn running Muni? It’s not necessarily a new question, but it’s a fun thought experiment nonetheless.

Would BART make Muni better? Worse? The same? Would running San Francisco’s buses, metro trains, streetcars, and cable cars actually make BART worse?

Here’s the mixed bag of what some of you had to say (responding to the question over at @munidiaries):

• “all for it. Especially if they bring the BART robot voice to MUNI bus announcements.” @jcsnotes
• “what would be better is if we had a comprehensive Bay Area wide transit system instead of a dozen transit fiefdoms” @biohzrd
• “anything would be better than Muni running muni.” @Jynx69637
• “cons: very noisy underground & wouldnt run 24/7. Pros: much much faster” @Medium_Matt
• “it’d be harder to get pee off the cushioned seats” @CrusaderMaximus
• “if muni could be a closed system with its own right of ways… This is like comparing apples to a shitstorm.” @cripsahoy
• “you would have shorter buses during commute hours for no apparent reason” @bellacantare
• “likely the better of two evils. I’m convinced mta is ran by a chimp who’s addicted to meth.” @richardsondh

What do you think? What if BART ran Muni?

Photo by presta

Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Starting next week, BART will be able to ban unsavory passengers. SFist has the story:

Thanks to a policy passed by the BART board last year, anyone caught defacing a building, taking a dump on the train or harassing passengers and station agents can be banned from the system for up to a year.

Go to SFist for the full story.

What do you think of this new policy? Long past due? Ripe for abuse?