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Friday, Sept. 1 – We’re heading into a three-day weekend, and BART is a great way to get to your barbecues and outdoor activities for Labor Day.  

On Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 4, BART will run Sunday service hours (8am to midnight). Scroll down for more detailed information.  

This week also marks the start of something really special. Friday, Sept. 1, is the official start of Transit Month, the monthlong celebration of regional transportation that toasts the many trains, buses, and ferries that connect our region and uplift our communities, economies, and cultures.  

During Transit Month, riders are encouraged to explore the region by taking local transportation. The month is hallmarked by a multitude of free events, a Ride Contest, ride-a-longs with transit leaders, a Rider First Awards ceremony, and more. 

Some of the BART-centric events to look forward to this year include: 

• Meet the BART Anime Mascots on Sept. 16  
• Beat the Ridership Record All Aboard Bay Area Transit Day on Sept. 16 
• Transit CEO Ride-Along and Happy Hour on Sept. 29 
• Mokelumne Trail Bridge Bike Ride from Antioch BART Station Plaza on Sept. 30, organized by Bike East Bay 
• BART Scavenger Hunt from Sept. 1 through 21, organized by Young Professionals in Transportation 

Read about the upcoming events and RSVP here.   

Transit Month also hosts a Ride Contest with prizes for those who log the most transit trips (riders who log any rides will be entered into a raffle). 

The rider who logs the most BART trips this Transit Month will win an HO scale BART A car made by Rapido Trains (currently available for preorder on railgoods.com). This museum-quality model will arrive inside a custom-made display case, allowing the rider to proudly show off their best-in-the-Bay Transit Month performance (Delivery is estimated Summer 2024). Other BART prizes up include a BARTable swag bag with promotional prizes, a poster-size BART map, and a BART anime mascot swag bag. Hear from last year’s BART Ride Contest winner below.  

For a more in-depth listing of local events, visit the BARTable website. We publish a weekly event roundup, BARTable This Weekend, that highlights happenings around the region as well as cool contests and sweepstakes from our partners.    

Monday, September 4, BART running Sunday schedule on Labor Day 

On Monday, September 4, 2023, BART will be running a Sunday schedule (8am-midnight) as we observe Labor Day. We will run five-line service until 9pm with 30-minute frequencies on all lines and then three-line service after 9pm. 

Five-line service means all lines will be running including the Red and Green lines, which provide direct service into San Francisco.  

Parking will be free at all BART stations on Labor Day, except Milpitas and Berryessa/North San Jose stations, which are operated by VTA. 

For the most up-to-date schedule information use our Trip Planner or our official BART app to plan your trip. 

Saturday and Sunday, September 2-3: Millbrae Art and Wine Festival 

Downtown Millbrae will transform into a street fair along Broadway to Victoria Ave. (south end) and to Meadow Glen Ave. (north end). The festival will feature live music, handcrafted goods by nearly 300 artists and crafters, food and drink, and more. BART staff and members of our police department will have a booth at the event to answer questions, promote programs, and give away BART swag. Take BART to Millbrae Station and walk a few minutes to the festival (travel time depends on where you enter).  

BARTable Walk: Downtown San José  

We’ve just unveiled a new BARTable walk – a lovely jaunt around Downtown San José. You’ll begin by disembarking at Berryessa/North San José and visit the gorgeous Chinese Cultural Garden, a specialty Portuguese market, the San José Flea Market, among other multicultural sights. Think of walk as an urban hike.  

You can find a description of the route and a map, developed by walking expert Guy Joaquin, on BARTable.  

Weekend Read: Get to know Jaime Espitia, winner of the 2022 BART Ride Contest who logged more than 400 rides 

Last Transit Month, Jaime Espitia won the 2022 BART Ride Contest, logging more BART trips than any other participant – he rode BART an incredible 422 times in one month!  

In recognition of his incredible feat, Jaime got to ride in the cab during passenger service with a Train Operator. What’s it like in the cab? Read about Jaime’s voyage here.  

Happy Riding this Weekend!  

We hope you enjoy your weekend adventures aboard our trains.     
 
Stay in touch by signing up for the BARTable This Weekend newsletter on the BARTable website – your one-stop shop for all things accessible by BART. You can also keep up with BARTable on Facebook and  Instagram. 

Jaime Espitia (left), who logged the most BART trips during Transit Month 2022, won a ride in a Train Operator’s cab. He claimed his prize in August, riding with Train Operator Dewayne Deams (far right). 

BART is investing in small improvements that make immense differences to pedestrians and bicyclists entering and exiting our stations, and the Ashby BART Bicycle Access Improvement Project is case in point.  

The project was completed in December 2024 on time and on budget and provides safer bicycle connections to BART from the west and east thanks to a new bike lane that closes a gap in Berkeley’s bike network between two major thoroughfares. The project also installed directional curb ramps on a highly trafficked entrance to align curbs with the intersection’s crosswalks.   

It's not just BART riders benefitting from these improvements, but everyone using the streets around the station, whether pedestrian, cyclist, or driver.  

“It’s always satisfying seeing what you worked so hard for being put to good use," said Matthew Hembd, BART Resident Engineer on the project. “I feel very proud to have taken part in something that has left such a positive and lasting impression on the commuters and people of Berkeley.” 

To execute the improvements, BART worked in collaboration with the City of Berkeley, which owns and maintains the roads and crossings around the station. In the spring, the city began construction on crossing improvements for two major streets, Adeline and MLK Jr. Way.  

“A project like this highlights what great things can be done here at BART when we all work together,” Hembd added.   

Watch a video of the bike lane here 

BART’s Maintenance Department played a key role in executing the vision – from grinding and demolition to spreading and compacting the asphalt – with minimal disruption to the public and a fast timeline.  

“Along with BART’s painters and grounds crews, they were able to transform the area into a place that is much more attractive and modern looking, which many people will appreciate for years to come,” cheered Hembd.  

Heath Maddox, BART Bicycle Access Program Manager and a former North Oakland resident, knows firsthand how significantly cyclists and pedestrians will benefit from these upgrades. For five years, before his career took him to BART, Maddox commuted to and from Ashby Station. At the same time, his children were in preschool across from the station.  

"Our family was doing a lot of traversing of BART property to pick up and drop off kids, usually via cargo bike, so the need to improve bike entries and exits on the west side was very apparent to me," Maddox said. “I always thought that these improvements could be easily legitimized with fairly modest changes to circulation using paint and signage, but even as a city bike/pedestrian planner, for some reason it never crossed my mind to suggest to BART that they do something about it. Then, years later, I found myself in a position – perhaps the position – to spur action from the inside. The rest, including all the great work by BART’s Matthew Hembd and Mariana Parreiras, is history.”  

Bay Area transit agencies have been syncing schedules in a whole new way to make riding transit even faster. Transit agencies from across the region are updating their schedules at the same time in mid-August to significantly improve transfer reliability and timing. With these changes, transit riders who use more than one system will see a variety of improvements across the Bay Area this month, saving some riders as much as 20 minutes on their trips.  

This is the third iteration of a coordinated Big Sync in the Bay Area. Agencies meet several months in advance of each schedule change to share planned changes and to look for opportunities to improve transfers. 

Four transfer hubs get schedule overhauls 

After a thorough analysis of potential high-impact improvements benefiting the greatest number of riders, four specific locations where riders transfer from one system to another were prioritized for changes to maximize efficiency: 

• Dublin/Pleasanton BART
• Daly City BART
• Palo Alto Caltrain
• Concord BART 

These transfer hubs involved the coordination of BART, Muni, SamTrans, Caltrain, VTA, Dumbarton Express, Stanford Marguerite, Tri Delta Transit, County Connection, StanRTA, and LAVTA’s Wheels.  

In all, 18 bus routes at the four hub locations were tweaked to improve transfer connections with BART, Caltrain, and with each other. For these 18 routes, this effort achieves a 33% increase in weekday ideal transfers, most commonly between 5-10 minutes, and a 47% increase in weekend ideal transfers.  

When a transfer window is too short, riders must sprint to make their connection, or worse, they just miss it and have a long wait. This effort achieves a 23% decrease in weekday transfers that are too short and a 36% decrease in weekday transfers that are too long. 

Advancing schedule change alignment is a key priority for Bay Area transit general managers, who meet on a weekly basis to make transit more rider-focused and efficient.   

“The Big Sync was born from the idea that while we are separate agencies by name, we all work as one to serve the region,” said BART General Manager Bob Powers, who leads a Monday morning call with all operators with a focus on coordination and transformational improvements.  “Bay Area transit agencies are maximizing our limited resources by working collaboratively to speed up travel times across the region and make it easier to ride the bus, train, or ferry.”   

View this map as a pdf

Some of the biggest travel time savings from this Big Sync include: 

Peninsula Travel Time Improvements 

• Riders from the Peninsula coastside to Millbrae will on average save 20 minutes in the morning peak and will save 14 minutes returning in the evening peak for those who take SamTrans #117, SamTrans #110, and BART.
• Riders from the Peninsula coastside to Downtown San Francisco will on average save 17 minutes in the morning peak and on average save 14 minutes returning in the evening peak for those who take SamTrans #117 or SamTrans #110, and BART.
• Midday riders from Union City to San Mateo will save 3 minutes in the westbound direction and 19 minutes in the eastbound direction for those who take Dumbarton Express and Caltrain beginning in September.  

East Bay Travel Time Improvements 

• Riders from East Dublin to Downtown San Francisco will save 17 minutes in the morning peak for riders who take LAVTA’s Wheels #2 and BART.
• Riders from Pleasanton to Downtown San Francisco will on average save 15 minutes in the morning peak for riders who take LAVTA’s Wheels #8 and BART.
• Riders from Livermore to Downtown San Francisco  will save 17 minutes in the morning peak for riders who take LAVTA’s Wheels #10R and BART. 

Other transit service coordination efforts for August include:  

• BART trains will have a longer dwell time at Millbrae Station for improved reliability of Caltrain and SamTrans connections.
• BART trains will have a longer dwell time at Dublin Station for improved LAVTA Wheels connections.
• BART will have more even train spacing between the Orange & Green lines from Berryessa to Richmond for improved connections with VTA, AC Transit, and Union City Transit bus service.
• Muni is offering more morning service on the 49 Van Ness/Mission, 30x Marina Express and 1x California Express that connect to BART and the Salesforce Transit Center based on feedback from their riders.
• VTA’s 500 bus at Berryessa BART will shift to align with BART’s new schedule.
• County Connection Route 35 at Dublin/Pleasanton BART will shift to align with the new BART schedule. In June, County Connection implemented changes to weekend routes 310, 314, and 320 to improve bus-bus connections at Concord BART.
• AC Transit has updated 104 bus lines as part of the all-new Realign network. Realign brings a range of improvements, including coordinated scheduling to support smoother transfers to BART and expanded service for better connections with Golden Gate Transit. Developed over two years with an equity focus, Realign right-sizes their bus network to address fiscal challenges while remaining flexible to meet the evolving travel needs of East Bay riders.
• Tri Delta Transit is making changes to several routes to better align with BART, County Connection, and WestCAT as part of a new “TDT Network” revitalized system update, with feedback from their riders, offering more frequent, efficient, and faster service.
• SamTrans is updating schedules for routes 110, 121, SKY and PCX in the Daly City area to better align with BART arrivals and departures. Farther down on the Peninsula, routes 280 and 281 will shift to better connect with Caltrain service at the Palo Alto Transit Center.
• Caltrain continues to work and meet with BART, VTA, and SamTrans to improve transfers. By sharing data and rider patterns with our partners, we were able to collaboratively sync up several routes that connect at the Palo Alto Transit Center and Caltrain Station, greatly reducing travel times. Because of that, ideal transfer connections have jumped from 44 to 146 and those that were too long or too short have dropped from 106 to just a couple dozen.