Thursday, June 22, 2006

Spare the Air Days!

BART passengers generally love Spare the Air Days! To us, it's really like a "passenger appreciation day" when we get free fare for a day or two to make up for all the inconveniences we've experienced for the year. For me, two Spare the Air days save $16 total! These special passenger appreciatoin days put us all in a great mood for a change.

On Spare the Air days, we tend to more easily forgive BART for any delays, over-crowdedness or other mishaps. You just can't complain a whole lot when you're riding for free.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The trains were unsually very crowded on my trip home last Thursday, the first Spare-the-Air day. Apparently, many of the riders were not commuters and were simply taking advantage of the all-day free ride.

BART's participation in Spare-the-Air days is supposed to move people out of cars and reduce vehicle miles traveled. It might have back-fired if noncommuters increased vehicles miles traveled by driving to BART for free rides.

BART should analyze last week's Spare-the-Air events and determine whether the expected air quality improvements actually occurred.

bartmusings said...

I've heard from drivers that traffic on the freeways during Spare the Air days are much less congested. So the free fare must have done its job enticing those who actually could take public transport to work instead of driving.

For those of us who already take BART, it's great because we actually save money. Although you're right, the trains do get more crowded, with barely any standing room at times.

bartmusings said...

Good idea!

Anonymous said...

the 3rd spare the air day turned out to be to be very busy with groups of teenagers riding for free and creating problems. many trains were being held at stations awaiting bart police to straighten out their problems. many trains late.

bartmusings said...

I do find that there are more undesirables (i.e. loiterers, homeless) on trains during spare the air days. But, wasn't it still nice to save 3 days of RT BART fare?

Anonymous said...

I loved it, It saved me well over $60 in transport fees. Yeah the trains were packed and the teens were out in full force. But $60 is a lot of dough!

Anonymous said...

There were delays both days. That doesn't count the usual door problems on the trains I ride. There were also door problems those two days besides the delay. Why doesn't BART maintain the trains better since they charge for parking now and have raised all the fares?