Monday, April 28, 2008

5 thoughts from my BART ride today

5. The past week, BART has consistently been 10+ minutes late daily, causing the trains to be unbearably crowded and uncomfortable. What the heck is going on?

4. Not only is it 10+ late, the next train (for those with time to spare and want a less stressful ride) is usually another 10 minutes away! Despite that fact, train operators announce inside the train that "the next SF bound train is just 1 minute behind, please step out of this train!" Who the heck is going to believe him when the electronic sign says "SF Daly City Train 10 minutes"! Needless to say, no one waits and everyone piles on.

3. I was within centimeters from passengers today. I was sandwiched between a woman who was within kissing range from me. If the train had come to a sudden stop, she would have no doubt fell on my face and planted a kiss on me. Behind me was this huge man....I was literally under his chin. Yes, we were all that close to each other physically during today's miserable ride!

2. I am considerate...I actually step out of the train at each stop to not block the doorways so people can exit and enter! But as I step aside to let people through, a short miserable looking man in a suit that is way too small for him takes my space! I was pissed and had no patience to deal with such inconsideration. I said sharpy, "Excuse me" and pushed him out of my way with my shoulder.

1. On a more positive note, my parents and sister came visit today. My sister flew in from the midwest to SFO and took BART to Orinda. She thought the process was easy and efficient although she commented on the train operator's announcement at each stop to be incomprehensible and inaudible, and the interesting mix of passengers on BART. Overall, her experience was positive. SFO BART ridership has gone up significantly the past year! Take a look at this article.

Hope tomorrow is a better day on BART! Not a good way to start off the week. I came into work quite late...from the BART delay, and then from missing my company shuttle connection.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is getting ridiculous the amount of people standing in these trains. Ridership has been increasing, yet, 8 and 9 car trains are still being ran. Can they really not afford to run constant 10 car trains between 6:30 and 8:30???

Linton, I know you read, explain.

Anonymous said...

There's not enough mechanics and electronic technicians. Cars get sent to the shops, and come out, and repeat the same problem. The shop guys are good, but they aren't magicians, they can only do so much. Car hours are way up, well over the preventive maintenance numbers.

Anonymous said...

So there's not enough of them, but there is enough money to give others a raise?

Gotta love it.

I just have to wonder why rush hour can't have a few additional cars meanwhile the off peak hours scale them back to 4-5 car trains?

Anonymous said...

Well, there have been some wayside/track way issues the past few days that helped to contribute to some delays.

As for the train lengths, those are set and the yards/end of lines do what they can to meet the train length requirements.

Car hours being what they are trains are being built as close to projected as possible.

We have scrambled all week to run the necessary commute trains. Sorry but a 5-car train during evening commute has to be better than no train.

Although I sympathize I would not want to be face to face, butt to butt with other patrons on that 5-car.

Rush hour aka commute does have added trains, both in the morning and evening.

Anonymous said...

We're you boarding a SFO train when the train operator said the next train in 1 minute? He was probably telling the truth, even though you said the sign displayed next SF/Daly City train in 10 minutes. The problem with the destination signs is they don't show times for all trains. They just display the first train for each destination. If there was another SFO train behind the one you are boarding, it will not show on the destination sign until the SFO train on the platform departs.