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(1/16/25 update)

The track shutdown and bus bridge that had been planned between Walnut Creek and Concord for Saturday, January 18 and Sunday, January 19 has been postponed. Instead, BART will offer our regular weekend service on both days.

BART will provide Saturday service for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Monday, January 20. Saturday service means BART will open at 6am and close at midnight and there is less frequency on the Yellow Line (service is every 20 minutes).

BART must replace decades old track components between Walnut Creek and Concord stations to ensure reliable service. To allow for the work to happen in the most efficient way possible as well as to provide safe conditions for workers, there will be no train service between Walnut Creek and Concord on Saturday, January 18 and Sunday, January 19. Instead, riders will get off their train and take a free bus to move between Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre, and Concord stations. Riders can expect delays of 20 to 30 minutes in the work area on both Saturday, January 18 and Sunday, January 19. Work is not planned for Monday, January 20. 

BART will provide Saturday service for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Monday, January 20. Saturday service means BART will open at 6am and close at midnight and there is less frequency on the Yellow Line (service is every 20 minutes).

The project will also require the cancellation of some early morning and late night trains.

Saturday Morning:

• The first southbound trains departing Concord at 5:37am and 5:57am will be cancelled.
• Instead, the first southbound trains going to San Francisco will depart Walnut Creek at 5:45am, 6:05am, and 6:25am.
• To accommodate southbound passengers, buses will depart Concord at 5:23am, 5:43am, and 6:03am and Pleasant Hill at 5:30am, 5:50am, and 6:10am to connect with these trains.

Saturday and Sunday Night:

• The last southbound train departing Antioch at 11:58pm and Pittsburg/Bay Point at 12:12am will be cancelled.
• Riders must take the earlier southbound train, which departs Antioch at 11:32pm and Pittsburg/Bay Point at 11:46pm.

Sunday Morning:

• The first southbound trains departing Concord at 7:37am and 7:57am will be cancelled.
• Instead, the first southbound trains going to San Francisco will depart Walnut Creek Station at 7:45am, 8:05am, and 8:25am.
• Buses will depart Concord at 7:23am, 7:43am, and 8:03am and Pleasant Hill at 7:30 AM, 7:50m, and 8:10am to connect with these trains.

This upcoming work is part of BART’s overall effort to improve safety and reliability of the 131-mile, 50 station system. There are now more rebuilding projects happening across BART than at any point in its more than 50-year history. You can learn more about the progress of this work by reading the 2024 Measure RR Annual Report published by the independent Measure RR Bond Oversight Committee.

You can keep up with the latest updates for trackway repair projects that impact service by going to our Alerts and Advisories page. BART’s Trip Planner has been improved to show the full rider journey including bus bridges. You can also check Real Time Departures for your station of choice.

(This article was first published 12/6/24)

Service will be reduced from two tracks to one at various locations along the Yellow Line in Contra Costa County over the next few months so new fiber optic cable can be installed as part of the effort to modernize BART’s technology infrastructure. BART is using the dedicated fiber to strengthen and modernize its communications network, adding critical redundancy and additional pathways for network traffic. The expanded fiber infrastructure will improve the resilience of technology systems supporting BART’s operations and help provide greater protection against network disruptions.

The work will start just before midnight and continue overnight until it concludes before the normal start of BART service the next morning. Starting at midnight, riders should expect delays of 10-15 minutes. This work may cause a minor delay to the final train transfers of the evening, but all riders will be able to reach their final destination. The Grand Meet at MacArthur and the final transfer to the Antioch DMU train will be coordinated. 

Work for this project will happen between North Concord/Martinez and Pittsburg/Bay Point stations on the following dates:

*October 20-21
*October 27-30
*November 2-6
*November 9-11
*November 17-18

This article will be updated as more work dates are confirmed.

A new day for riders arrives Wednesday, August 20, as BART becomes the Bay Area’s first Tap and Ride system. Starting with tomorrow morning’s commute, Tap and Ride will provide riders the ability to pay adult fares at BART fare gates using physical contactless credit or debit cards or mobile payment methods such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. With Tap and Ride, riders will no longer need to use a Clipper card to ride BART.  This will be an immense timesaver for riders who can now use their contactless bank cards to ride BART with zero registration or setup process required. 

“Tap and Ride follows the installation of Next Generation Fare Gates, running only Fleet of the Future trains, boosting cleaning, and increasing our visible safety presence as efforts that are transforming the BART experience,” said BART General Manager Bob Powers. “This is an especially important innovation for out-of-town visitors and infrequent riders who may not have a physical or digital Clipper card and want a simple way to use our service.” 

“Right now, San Francisco is seeing real momentum, and you can feel it across the city—on our streets, in our businesses, and in the energy downtown. And we are continuing this momentum by giving residents and visitors an easy, reliable way to get to the heart of our city,” said San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie. “Tap and Ride will make it faster and easier than ever to take BART into and around San Francisco, and it will help drive our city's recovery.”

Tips for using Tap and Ride on BART 

Cards accepted for Tap and Ride on BART include Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover Network. Physical bank cards must be contactless enabled, with the contactless symbol on either the front or back of the card. Riders can also use bank cards added to digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay to Tap and Ride.  

When paying with a contactless bank card, riders will be charged full adult fares, and riders with eligibility-based discounts, such as Clipper START or youth and senior discounts, must continue using their physical or digital Clipper card. Transfer discounts will not be available with Tap and Ride until the feature is rolled out to the Bay Area’s other transit agencies. Riders transferring from BART to a connecting transit agency are advised to use their physical or digital Clipper card to receive the current transfer discounts.  

Each rider must pay with their own card or device, and they must use the same card or device to tap in and tap out of the BART system. If family members have the same credit card number but they are on different cards and devices, they will be able to use it. 

Tap and Ride going Bay Area wide 

Tap and Ride functionality for BART riders marks the first step in the transition toward the long-awaited next generation of the Bay Area’s Clipper® electronic transit-fare payment system being implemented by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and participating Clipper transit agencies. Contactless bank cards soon will be accepted by the nearly two dozen other Bay Area transit agencies that accept Clipper for fare payment. Once the next generation of Clipper is rolled out Bay Area wide, Tap and Ride will include all discounted fares and transfers between transit services. 

“MTC and the Bay Area transit agencies will be rolling out a number of other improvements to the Clipper fare payment system in the coming months,” said MTC Chair and Pleasant Hill Mayor Sue Noack. “This early rollout of contactless bank card acceptance on BART is an example of MTC’s commitment to making transit fare payment easier for riders across the region.”  

BART now accounts for about half of all Bay Area transit trips paid for using Clipper. In 2019, the agency retired paper tickets and began accepting only Clipper card fare payments. 

How to avoid card clash 

Card clash occurs when a Clipper reader detects more than one card at a time, which can result in card reader errors (i.e., three beeps, red light and tap again messages) or having the wrong card charged. This applies to both Clipper cards and contactless bank cards, including cards stored in digital wallets.   

To avoid card clash, users of physical cards should remove their card from their wallet or purse before tapping. Riders using Apple Pay to Tap and Ride can easily enable Express Mode for their credit or debit card by accessing the Wallet and following the steps. Those with a Clipper Card already added to Apple Wallet who would prefer to use Tap and Ride to pay for transit must turn off Express Mode for Clipper card. 

Android devices will automatically present the digital Clipper card if the user has one in Google Wallet. Android device users can override this feature and pay with Tap and Ride by navigating to their desired bank card before tapping on a Clipper card reader.  

Starting August 20, customers can call the Clipper Customer Service Center at 877-878-8883 for assistance using contactless bank cards. Customers also may visit the Clipper Contactless Payments webpage to learn more. A new website feature allows customers to get a list of recent contactless transit-fare payment transactions.  

Learn more about how to use Tap and Ride at bart.gov/contactless

Rudy Garza, BART’s new Director of the Office of Civil Rights. 

This Hispanic Heritage Month, BART is proud to celebrate employees with Hispanic and Latino heritage, who enrich our organization and the community at large. Over 15% of BART's workforce identifies as Hispanic and Latino, and we will be celebrating them throughout the month with additional stories and internal gatherings.

Hispanic Heritage Month runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Rudy Garza and his fellow investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor were up at dawn one morning in the late 90s for a surprise inspection of crops in California’s Central Valley when they made a disturbing discovery.  
 
“We saw kids working the fields,” said Garza, BART’s new Director of the Office of Civil Rights. “There were even infants out there.” 

Garza’s team referred the children to social workers, seized the entire crop, and started an investigation that ended with significant civil penalties for the farmers, including back wages paid. 
 
His time patrolling the fields in the 1990s was a turning point for Garza, the grandchild of Central Valley farm workers himself.  

Garza is deeply influenced by his family’s journey to California. His grandmother immigrated from Mexico and met his grandfather, a veteran of World War II, in the southwest. They eventually made their way to Fresno, living in tents while working the fields. At the end of each work day, Garza’s grandfather would come home to construct the family’s future two-bedroom house with his own two hands.

“I am proud to come from an immigrant background and demonstrate that immigrants -- all immigrants, not just Hispanic immigrants -- are the backbone of this country,” he said, “where hard work and never giving up is the foundation of who you are.” 

Garza entered the military at 17. While serving, he saw the Berlin Wall fall; Germany win the World Cup; and the decommissioning of the Pershing nuclear missile arsenal as the Cold War came to a close. 

When Garza came back home, he had stints in law enforcement and even worked as a part-time high school football coach back in Fresno. But his work at the Department of Labor gave him a new sense of purpose. 

“That was really my first taste of civil rights,” he said. “I really enjoyed that, protecting the public good.” 

Rudy Garza during his time in the Army.

Garza’s career would take him on a tour across California government, always in roles ensuring complex laws were carried out to ensure the public’s rights were being upheld.  

There was his time at the Fair Political Practices Commission, investigating campaign finance violations. Then he worked to ensure incarcerated people received proper care at the California Correctional Health Care Services. That was followed by a job as a manager at the State Department of Public Health, where he made sure patients were receiving proper nursing care. Just before arriving at BART, he worked as the California Highway Patrol’s Civil Rights Officer.  

Garza is thrilled to join BART, a large, complex organization with a strong public mission.  

“We ensure that everyone has equal access to BART’s programs, our trains, the ability to contract with us,” he said of the Office of Civil Rights. 

Top: Rudy Garza with this family during his swearing in ceremony as a Fresno County Sheriff's deputy. Bottom: Rudy with his younger brother.

Garza has been impressed with the level of expertise and depth of talent at BART, not just among the Office of Civil Rights staff but across the District. 

“They're all very highly intelligent people. They see beyond the bend in the curve,” he said of his colleagues.  

Garza sees the Office of Civil Rights playing a big role in BART’s continued success and sustainability in the Bay Area.

“I am committed to ensuring we provide contracting opportunities for small and disadvantaged business enterprises, along with women- and minority-owned business enterprises to help BART continue to provide safe, reliable, and clean transit service to the residents of the communities we serve.” 

During Hispanic Heritage Month, Garza likes to return to Victor Villaseñor's epic novel Rain of Gold. It’s a tale of magical realism and a family’s saga of struggle crossing the border and making a life in the U.S. It also serves as a reminder that the Hispanic community is not a monolith. Whether you are Cuban American, Puerto Rican, Latino, Latinx, Chicano -- there is a rich mix of heritages and backgrounds that make up this diverse community and are celebrated during Hispanic Heritage Month.  

Rudy commutes by BART and Capitol Corridor from Sacramento. 

BART crews will replace the old fire alarm system at Walnut Creek Station beginning the week of Monday, February 9. The elevators and escalators at the station will be intermittently out of service so BART crews can tie them into the new fire alarm system. Riders who need to use an elevator or escalator to access BART should consider using Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa Centre or Lafayette stations as alternatives or contact the Station Agent for assistance. Agents can arrange a ride to a different station in an accessible van if needed. The work is expected to last approximately two weeks. 

Testing of the new fire alarm system may result in strobe and speaker activations, open fare gates, and preempt public address (PA) announcements that are false alarms. There will be extra safety staff including BART PD on hand to monitor. Walnut Creek Station will remain open while the work takes place.