Update 8:38 a.m.
KQED News’ Julia McEvoy reports that BART trains are packed with numerous people sitting on the floor during the Friday morning commute, and that the announcements over loudspeakers are difficult to understand . She interviewed commuter Brenda Dennis about the issues that face BART’s riders during days like this:
“The problem is that BART (is) having too many of these problems. They should be able to have buses for people. So if you knew there was a problem you should have a backup for buses. But to keep on packing people on the train and not telling anybody; their (loudspeakers) are terrible; they need to do better than they’re doing. We are paying too much money for this system. This is the worst system in the whole world. New York’s system is way better than this system. And they know they have too many problems. Just two weeks ago we had the man on the doggoned rail. BART was terrible; it did not have enough trains. And we’re not going to talk about the customer service, the agents are terrible, they don’t even know how to talk to people when things like that happen.”
The delays on BART's four transbay routes are due to an overnight collision between two maintenance vehicles in the Transbay Tube that damaged 380 feet of the electric third rail.
The trains must now use a single track under the bay, according to BART officials. They recommended that commuters find other ways to travel today.
The accident between the maintenance vehicles working in the tube came at 2:35 a.m.
As more people turned to their cars to get to work Friday morning, traffic across the Bay Bridge was heavy and was backed up during the early morning commute.
