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A Bigge crane brought in for the transformer project is pictured besides the BART tracks.

Read more stories about BART infrastructure and big building projects at bart.gov/railtales. 

A newly energized transformer near the core of the BART system is expected to improve the customer experience by increasing power redundancy and resiliency. This translates to increased reliability in the key passage that connects the East Bay to San Francisco. 

The transformer was installed on a whirlwind six-month schedule to ensure the area, so crucial to BART’s busy Oakland Wye in the center of the system, had sufficient backup power in case one of the other nearby substations must be taken down for maintenance. The Oakland Wye refers to a triangular junction where BART trains can switch between multiple lines.  

“All five lines run through the Oakland Wye; a train is going through it every two to three minutes during peak commute, so it's important to have massive redundancy here to mitigate delays and keep trains running,” said Gordon Wong, Principal Electrical Engineer who wore many hats for this project. 

A Bigge crane removes the original transformer on May 17, 2025.

The nearby substations operate at the same time, their transformers and rectifiers fulfilling their job of converting 34.5kv voltage fed via sub-transmission cables from the power grid into the 1,000 DC voltage train motors require to run. 

The old transformer, located between Fruitvale and Lake Merritt stations, needed to be replaced after reaching the end of its life after 20 years of service. BART Traction Power engineers made the decision to replace it after regular maintenance testing alerted staff that the equipment was at risk of failing.  

“Myat deemed this year the ‘Year of the Substation,’” said Asst. Chief Infrastructure Delivery Officer Manal Bishr of her colleague Myat San, BART Chief Infrastructure Delivery Office. “We gave him a little bit of a hard time about that, but it’s really motivated the team. This is huge for providing power to the core of our system!" 

Left to right: BART Traction Power Electricians Javier Morales and Robert Flores install high-voltage wiring on May 28, 2025.

By removing a transformer near Dublin/Pleasanton and reinstalling it at this Oakland location, BART saved a significant amount of money and honored the agency’s sustainability values. Only one line runs from Dublin/Pleasanton to Bay Fair, and trains have lower frequencies. This means the area requires less power to operate. 

“We saved at least $500,000 and three years of work by using a pre-existing transformer,” Wong said of the project, which was funded by voter-approved Measure RR. “This project cost half the price of furnishing a new transformer."

Moving a transformer is no simple task, and multiple departments supported the work, including Traction Power Engineering and Maintenance, Structural Engineering and Maintenance, Integration Engineering, Operations Liaisons, and System Access. In addition to Bishr, San, and Wong, the project was led by BART’s Zeeshan Ali, Adam Flynn, Michael Gibson, Andrew Holcomb, Ravi Raj, Andrew Shuck, Thaw Tin, Juan Ulloa, and Damon Williams.  

BART Traction Power Electrician Javier Morales works on high-voltage wiring for the transformer installation on May 28, 2025. 

Transformers are giant pieces of equipment, weighing about 30,000 pounds – about half the weight of one BART car. What goes on inside a transformer? Simply, power comes in from one end, and windings step down the voltage to convert it to the correct voltages. Three megawatts is the full-rated capacity of the transformer in question.  

The most cinematic moment of the process was using a crane to lift the transformer lay it on its concrete foundation. Bringing in a giant crane required months of legwork. A significant amount of vegetation needed clearing, then BART needed to secure permits with the Union Pacific Railroad, with which BART has an easement. 

Left to right: BART Senior Electrical Engineer Henry Nguyen and Junior Engineer Artem Morozov  work on the installation of the transformer on May 28, 2025.

It was a celebratory day when the crane made its triumphant appearance at the work site. After a semi-truck dropped off the crane and its counterweights, the rigging crew had to assemble it – it takes three hours! -- and used a giant forklift to roll it into place. Then the team had to wait for “the blanket,” A.K.A. the small window at night when trains aren’t running for passenger service. When at last the time came for the crane to lift and place the transformer, the team exhaled. In all, the lift took about thirty minutes. Planning out the moment, however, required months of labor.  

After connecting the primary 34.5kV cables, the Traction Power team energized the transformer and listened to the sweet sound of its internal winding heating up as energy surged through and trains zoomed past.  

Contractors on the transformer project included C3M, Clark, Cupertino, Azul, Biggie Crane, Rigging Rail Pros Flagging, CEL Soil Sampling, and Novoa testing. 

It's the most BARTable time of the year! 

Celebrate our third year of the immensely popular BART holiday sweater at SweaterFest '23! Wear your BART holiday sweater from any year and join BART staff and fellow riders for a group photo at Rockridge Station on Sunday, December 10 from 2-3:30pm.

For riders who did not pre-order the 2023 BART holiday staff but would like to purchase one, staff will be selling the 2023 holiday sweater at SweaterFest '23. We will have contests, prizes, other BART merch for sale, music, and more to make it a true holiday event! Winners of our SweaterFest '23 Raffle can win exclusive BART prizes. (Raffle contestants must be present to win prizes)

Extra 2023 BART holiday sweaters will go on sale at railgoods.com after Thanksgiving. 

For pre-orders who selected the pick-up option, your holiday sweater is available for pick-up at BART HQ, 2150 Webster Street in Oakland (walkable distance from 19th St Oakland Station) on weekdays from November 22 until December 7. The hours for pick-up are between 8:30am until 4pm. November 23 and November 24 will not be open due to Thanksgiving. 

Starting December 11, pre-order pick-ups will be moved to the Customer Services Center at Lake Merritt Station on the concourse level.

Don’t be left out in the cold…grab your sweater and join us for a family-friendly, holiday-celebrating SweaterFest ’23!

We plan to introduce our new stamp rally passport at SweaterFest. If you attend the Meet the Anime Mascots event at Powell Street, be sure to bring your stamp from that event and we will add it to our passport.

BART’s reimagined schedule, which was rolled out on Monday, will be a boon for riders who want to travel around the Bay this weekend. The new service plan is designed to work for everyone, every day and means no BART rider will have to wait more than 20 minutes for a scheduled train no matter what hour of the day or what day of the week. 30-minute wait times between scheduled trains are now a thing of the past for BART on nights and weekends.

This Saturday and Sunday riders will notice the difference as they see more trains at their stations. Weekend service now has 20-minute service on all 5 lines until 9pm. And after 9pm 20-minute service on 3 lines will arrive at the same time every day of the week.

Examples of our boosted weekend service include:

*Richmond-MacArthur riders will now see 6 trains per hour instead of 4. 
*West Oakland-Daly City riders will get 12 trains per hour instead of 10 on Saturdays and 8 on Sundays. 
*Bay Fair-Berryessa riders will see their trains per hour increase from 4 to 6.
*Trains per hour are also increasing for our evening 3-line service, which begins every night at 9pm.

This Saturday is All Aboard Transit Day in celebration of Transit Month when everyone in the Bay Area is encouraged to try transit. Take as many transit trips as your heart desires this Saturday to help us beat the Saturday September 2022 ridership record. We will add up the total ridership for the day and report out to the public if we exceed the Saturday, September 2022 ridership, which was the highest ridership for a Saturday in September during Transit Month 2022.

On Saturday, BART will host "Meet the BART Anime Mascots" event at Powell Street Station from 2-6 pm. Take photos with the mascots, make buttons with staff, grab a prize from the BART capsule ball machine, and more! Come in cosplay and get a rare BART anime charm. The Link21 outreach team will also be there to talk about our project to build a second train crossing connecting Oakland and San Francisco. 

BART will also have special late-night service for the Ed Sheeran concert at Levi’s Stadium this Saturday. 

The new schedule, which began Monday, is already serving record numbers of riders. On Wednesday, BART carried 192,961 passengers – the most since the pandemic shelter-in-place orders were enacted in March 2020. Just a day before, Tuesday, September 12th, BART served 192,081 riders. The new schedule is responsive to post-pandemic commute patterns and ridership growth opportunities, with a new emphasis on weeknight and weekend service. 

Update: The survey is now closed.

BART is seeking the public’s input on a proposed January 2026 less-than-inflation fare increase.  

BART’s current funding model relies on passenger fares to run safe, clean, and reliable service and to help pay for key improvement projects. BART has a fare increase program that calls for small, regular, less-than-inflation increases every two years, with the next increase of 6.2% scheduled for January 1, 2026. For a short trip like Downtown Berkeley to 19th St./Oakland, the regular fare is estimated to increase by $0.15, and for a longer trip like Antioch to Montgomery, it’s estimated to increase by $0.55. 

This proposed increase will help minimize the risk of service cuts while BART explores a long-term funding solution to restore financial stability, as some riders are taking fewer trips than before. Fares continue to be an important funding source to continue to meet the needs of riders who rely on BART. 

Your feedback is important! Learn more and share your opinions by taking the survey online at bart.gov/faresurvey2025 or in-station at the locations listed below. The survey closes March 18. Respondents may choose to enter to win a $50 Clipper card at the end of the survey. It is available in multiple languages. 

In-station survey locations: 

• Lake Merritt | Tuesday, March 4, 7am – 9:30am 

• Pittsburg/Bay Point | Thursday, March 6, 3pm – 6pm 

• Fruitvale | Monday, March 10, 7am – 9:30am 

• El Cerrito del Norte | Wednesday, March 12, 3pm – 6pm 

• Montgomery St | Thursday, March 13, 7am – 9:30am 

BART offers the following fare discount programs: 

• Low-income adults earning 200% or less of the federal poverty level get 50% off through the regional Clipper START program.  

• Youth 5-18 years old get 50% off with a Youth Clipper card. 4 years and younger ride free.  

• Seniors 65 and over get 62.5% off with a Senior Clipper card.  

• The RTC Clipper card is a version of Clipper created for passengers under 65 with qualifying disabilities to provide 62.5% off.  

• BART offers a “High-value Discount.” Adult Clipper cards get a 6.25% discount on cash value rides by buying $48 worth of value for $45 or $64 worth of value for $60 when autoload is set up with your registered Clipper card.  

• Monthly “A” Adult Fast Pass + BART within San Francisco: Unlimited rides on all Muni vehicles and on BART within San Francisco (trips outside of these stations are charged full fare). Available for sale from the 17th of the prior month through the 16th of the month. 

• Students on a school-sponsored field trip for an educational purpose are eligible for a 62.5% discount fare when purchased in advance through Group Sales. 

All discounts are set up in advance through Clipper: clippercard.com/discounts  

Some of the winners from our BART Lines Teen Poetry Contest will be participating in the Bay Area Book Festival's free and family-friendly Outdoor Fair this Sunday, June 2 in Berkeley.

Festivalgoers can stop by our table to write a BART “flash” poem with our award-winning poets. Every flash poem writer gets a BART prize. Several of the teen poetry contest winners along with Youth Speaks Brave New Voices team members will be reading their BART Lines poems at the table throughout the day. We’ll be tabling at the Outdoor Fair in the Family Fun Zone - booth 106.

We’ll also be selling our hot-off-the-presses BART Lines chapbook. Be the first to get your hands on a copy and get it signed by one of the teen poets whose work is featured in the collection. The one-of-a-kind books will be for sale on railgoods.com after the event.

The Outdoor Fair runs from 11am to 4pm in MLK Jr/Civic Center Park in Downtown Berkeley, and the BART station is just a 3-minute walk from the festivities. More info here. See you there!

Heading to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass at Golden Gate Park this weekend? Public transit is your best bet.

BART riders heading to Hardly Strictly from the East Bay can take a train to Powell Station. Transfer to a Muni 5 Fulton bus or 5R Fulton Rapid on Market Street and ride to Golden Park. 

BART riders coming up from San Mateo County or San Francisco can take a train to Civic Center Station and transfer to a Muni N Judah train on the upper level of the station. The N Judah train will run near Golden Gate Park on Irving and Judah Streets.

Rider Tips

Parking is free at all BART stations except Milpitas and Berryessa/North San Jose (which are operated by VTA) on Saturday, Oct. 5, and Sunday, Oct. 6. Pay for parking easily on the BART app.

Before you leave home, put Clipper card on your cellphone through either Apple Pay or Google Pay. Please ensure you have sufficient funds for a round trip. Plan at the cost of your trip in advance.

Real-time departures and train alerts can be found at bart.gov/eta or on the BART app. 

Discover more fun events happening this weekend on BARTable. 

The BART Board of Directors annual workshop will be held Thursday, February 8, 2024, and for the first time, it will include a lively panel discussion with transit advocates, policy experts, and key stakeholders to discuss what is needed to develop and successfully pass a regional transportation funding measure to provide long-term funding for BART and all Bay Area transit agencies.

The panel discussion is free and open to the public and will take place from 9am-noon in the BART boardroom (2150 Webster Street, Oakland) and on Zoom. This is an exciting opportunity for the BART board, BART employees, news media, and members of the public to hear a variety of perspectives about what transit operators need to do in the next 30 months to achieve a successful transportation measure in 2026, including improvements to the customer experience and policy reforms. 

In addition to the experts on the panel, Rebecca Long from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission will help us set the stage for the discussion, as they are leading the effort to secure long term funding for transit.

Public comment related to the panel topic will be taken at the end of the panel discussion. 

The second half of the Board Workshop will include informational staff presentations on BART’s operating budget projections and BART’s capital program to fund and deliver projects that ensure safe, reliable, and frequent service. Staff will also introduce a new customer commitment and review the changes underway to improve the customer experience. 

View the agenda and presentations.

Panel Details

Moderator: Karen Philbrick, PhD, Mineta Transportation Institute, San Jose State University

Panelists:

• Alicia John-Baptiste, President and CEO, SPUR

• Darrell Owens, Policy and Data Analyst and Advocate, East Bay Transit Riders Union

• Emily Loper, Vice President of Public Policy, Bay Area Council

• Ian Griffiths, Co-Founder and Policy Director, Seamless Bay Area

• Jeff Shaffer, President/Business Agent, Local 1277, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU)

When: February 8th, 9am-noon

Where: In person in the BART Boardroom, 2150 Webster Street, Oakland, or via Zoom by calling

833-548-0282 and entering access code 822 5984 8450 or logging in to Zoom.com and entering

access code 822 5984 8450.

BART’s work to install state-of-the-art Next Generation Fare Gates at all 50 of its stations by the end of this year has achieved a significant goal. With the recent completion of work at San Bruno Station, new gates have now been installed at all six BART stations in San Mateo County. Next Generation Fare Gates are now in service at 48 stations, putting the project on track to reach its goal of full installation across the five counties BART serves by the end of 2025. 

“The installation of these game-changing fare gates is the result of a collaborative effort. I’m proud to say we have hit the reset button on the relationship between San Mateo County and BART,” said San Mateo County Board of Supervisors President David Canepa. “BART and San Mateo County share the goal of increasing ridership through making stations safer and cleaner. These gates represent a critical step in what will be an ongoing partnership to put riders first.” 

Next Generation Fare Gates feature clear swing barriers that are much more difficult to push through or jump over compared to the old gates BART had used for decades. The new gates are bolstered by a one-of-its-kind locking mechanism designed to boost their resilience. The gates also improve access for paying riders. They have LED lighting on the swing barriers and are equipped with 3D sensors that can detect if someone is in a wheelchair or has a bike, stroller, or luggage with them. 

“We carry approximately 25 percent of transit boardings among all operators in San Mateo County,” said BART General Manager Bob Powers. “I think even more people in San Mateo County will ride BART because of these fare gates and how they are changing the station environment by serving as a deterrent against unwanted behavior.” 

The new gates are getting mostly positive reviews from riders. A survey of riders indicated the number of those who reported seeing someone fare evade dropped by nearly 1/3 from just a year ago as new gates have been installed in more stations.  

The installation of Next Generation Fare Gates at the five non-airport stations in San Mateo County was fully funded by the San Mateo County Transportation Authority through voter-approved Measure W. SFO funded the new gates at San Francisco International Airport Station. 

Learn more about the Next Generation Fare Gates project here. 

BART riders can now access free Wi-Fi 6E at four more heavily travelled stations, ensuring seamless connectivity for fans and residents ahead of FIFA World Cup-related events.

The four stations that recently went live are 16th St/Mission, 24th St/Mission, Glen Park and Balboa Park. Visitors to these stations are now provided with critical connectivity, especially during a busy ridership period with the Bay Area hosting an international event. The Wi-Fi access is essential for international visitors to communicate without a U.S. roaming plan.

This brings the total number of BART stations with free Wi-Fi to nine, following February’s launch at the first five stations — San Francisco International Airport, West Oakland, Embarcadero, Civic Center, and Powell Street.

This is a comprehensive digital transformation project that will bring state-of-the-art Wi-Fi connectivity to all BART stations over the next couple of years, followed by onboard connectivity on all BART trains.

The Wi-Fi is powered by Boldyn Networks, a leading neutral host provider. BART riders will access the SSID network named “BART Wi-Fi," and no password or email is required. Sessions on the network will last 20 minutes, and users will be required to confirm they are still actively using the network beyond 20 minutes. 

Once users select to join the BART Wi-Fi network, their device will present an option to connect automatically. If that option is selected, their device will remember the SSID. When within the coverage area of the network, their device will automatically join the SSID, and a captive portal page will be presented to ensure they are still active on the network.

“Providing high-quality Wi-Fi is part of our commitment to meeting the evolving needs of our riders and enhancing the customer experience through reliable connectivity,” said Ravi Misra, Assistant General Manager of Technology at Bay Area Rapid Transit. “Boldyn partnered with us to deliver this second phase of upgrades as the region prepares to host the FIFA World Cup, with additional improvements coming in the months and years ahead.”

“As we get closer to the most important international sports event of the year, we are proud of our partnership with BART and the visible progress we’re making in connecting more tunnels and stations with our fiber, Wi-Fi and 5G technology,” said Dana Tardelli, Chief Operating Officer of Boldyn Networks, US. “A well-connected transport infrastructure will provide an unforgettable experience for the millions of locals and visitors getting to different destinations in the area to watch their favorite teams play”.

Benefits of the new Wi-Fi service include:

• Eases strain on cell network during high-density events.
• Overall, phones perform better when connected to reliable Wi-Fi, especially in a congested area. It saves battery life too.
• Ensures riders can access digital fare payments and emergency communications.

Wi-Fi connectivity is expected to be deployed at BART’s remaining stations in phases, with full project completion by early 2028.