BART

It is BART’s Birthday! And we got a great early gift yesterday: It was our busiest day since the pandemic started. Ridership has been on the rise lately and Tuesday we saw 195,296 riders! BART has more special days coming up. On Saturday we are giving our old paper tickets a send off. Students from around the Bay Area turned the tickets into high fashion. They will show off their looks 1 p.m. at Rockridge Station parking lot. And on Monday, the Transbay Tube turns 50! We launched an online trivia contest to help celebrate a half-century of service in the tube. The contest runs through Thursday: https://lnkd.in/gYujgE_k Stay tuned for more and keep riding.

We are publishing a series of explainer articles breaking down new data and analyses from BART's Role in the Region Report. Today's post looks at BART's impact on lowering the cost of living. BART connects people in the Bay Area to jobs, helping them save money on transportation costs. Our trips are cheaper than driving, and people who live near BART stations typically have lower transportation costs than those in other parts of the region. Read more here: https://t.co/S9RbeelH9g

We just had our highest ridership day since the start of the pandemic! BART ridership hit 194,274 (# of exits) on Wednesday. We have been seeing ridership bounce back recently with Back-to-School and busy weekends full of fun events. It’s evident people are taking BART for so many different reasons! Let’s take a dive into the numbers. First up: Civic Center. A week after finishing installation of our new fare gates at Civic Center Station we saw 700 more exits there yesterday compared to last Wednesday. No other downtown stations saw a bump. It’s too soon to tell, but there could certainly be a correlation. Coliseum Station had 2,700 more exits yesterday, the largest week over week gain, thanks to a concert at the Oakland Arena. Shout out to Future and Metro Boomin for giving ridership a boost! Get more information about our ridership trends here: https://bit.ly/4cWDVuO

When Sam Johnson sees someone lost in a BART station, they roll up their sleeve and show them a bicep. Etched five layers deep into the epidermis of Sam’s right arm is a tattoo of the BART System Map. It’s Sam’s first and only tattoo, and in a pinch, it comes in handy. It’s a practical tattoo but also a piece of art, an homage to the Bay, a love letter to transit. And let’s be honest, said Sam, “It looks good on me.” For Sam, it’s a way to “spread the gospel of transit.” They’d been thinking about the tattoo for awhile, and one day, they finally got the courage to walk into Black Sea Tattoo in Walnut Creek with a printout of the System Map. Tattoo artist Earl Pitt took care of the rest. “Everyone loves it and thinks it’s so fun,” they said. “People go, ‘Is that BART?’ They are so tickled.” And Sam is already thinking about the next one: “I’m thinking it will be a tattoo of a legacy train.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/g4dg7VjV

Civic Center Station is now fully outfitted with Next Generation Fare Gates! It is the first station in the system with multiple sets of the new gates. BART has successfully installed Next Generation Fare Gates at Civic Center, Fruitvale, and West Oakland stations. Work is expected to begin next week on the installation of new fare gates at two more stations: • 24th Street/Mission • Richmond BART will replace more than 700 fare gates at all 50 stations systemwide by the end of 2025. Funding for the new gates comes from local, state, and federal sources. We thank the San Francisco County Transportation Authority for providing $12.5 million to cover 50% of the 8 San Francisco County stations. Read more about the new fare gates here: https://lnkd.in/gGJDUg8V

BART is hitting the runway this upcoming Transit Month to give a final send-off to our retired paper tickets that were a portal to our system for more than a 1 billion trips in the decades since BART’s inception. We gave fashion design students from four local schools thousands of old paper tickets with one condition: transform them into high fashion.  The students from Academy of Art University, Oakland School for the Arts, City College of San Francisco, and San Francisco State University will strut their stuff and share their unique designs for a full-blown fashion show, “Project Doneway: A Farewell to BART Paper Tickets,” in the parking lot at Rockridge Station on Saturday, September 14,th from 1pm to 3pm. 

What can BART learn from Swiss transit? BART's Manager of Strategic and Policy Planning Hannah Lindelof visited Switzerland to observe their integrated transit system in action. She's now back and has many lessons learned about how the Bay Area can put the rider first and make public transit the most appealing option for more people. Listen to our latest podcast:

BART wants to make getting to and from its stations safer and more accessible. We're launching Safe Trips to BART, a systemwide action plan to improve roadway safety. And we want your input. The goal of Safe Trips to BART is to identify investments that could reduce or eliminate traffic deaths and severe injuries, such as transportation infrastructure improvements on roadways in and around BART station areas and BART service improvements that encourage more people to take transit instead of driving. Get Involved: Provide comments on the action plan, sign up for project email updates and learn more about Safe Trips to BART by visiting www.bart.gov/safetrips

The lifeblood of the region. A conduit for romance. A gateway to independence. BART means so many things to so many different people. Hear from them in their own words in our latest BART Connects video. Find all the BART Connects stories on bart.gov/bartconnects

Affordable housing near BART just got a huge boost! Today, three affordable housing projects in partnership with BART were approved for Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities (AHSC) awards by the California Strategic Growth Council. BART will get over $14M and the housing developments will receive up to: -$35M for North Berkeley TOD on BART property -$25M for El Cerrito Plaza TOD on BART property -$25M for 699 Ygnacio Valley Rd near Walnut Creek Station These housing allocations are expected to help the BART TOD projects complete their subsidy plans and start construction within the next 1-2 years. The approved grants will directly invest in BART infrastructure benefiting many riders: -Traction power substation renovation at both Powell Station ($7M) and Daly City Station ($6M) -Lighting efficiency upgrades, new platform displays, new wayfinding signage, and license plate readers at Walnut Creek station ($1.25M) BART’s ongoing success w/ the AHSC program reflects our efforts to be a more proactive partner w/ the affordable housing community.