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In late May / early June, the entrance to Montgomery Street Station at Sansome and Sutter Streets will be closed for the construction of a new canopy. The entrance is expected to remain closed until early 2025.

Six other entrances to Montgomery St. will remain open (please see the map below).

BART plans to construct a total of 21 street-level canopies over downtown station entrances.  BART has completed construction of 10 units (including 2 pilot canopies) with 4 more canopies currently under construction and 7 additional canopies to be constructed through 2026.  These entrance canopies will protect the new escalator equipment and reduce maintenance costs.  In addition, canopies will include wayfinding, lighting, real-time information, and security cameras on Market Street.  

Simultaneously, BART is replacing escalator units in the four downtown stations.   These escalators are original to the BART system and have outlived their expected mechanical life, frequently requiring repairs.  In 2020, BART began the escalator renovation project to replace 41 escalators at the four downtown stations on both platform and street levels.  To date, BART has completed installation of 10 units, 4 are currently under construction, and there are 27 remaining escalator units to be completed through 2026.  

The week of September 3rd, BART will begin the installation of Next Generation Fare Gates on the concourse level of 24th Street/Mission Station. The first set of gates to be replaced will be those located next to the Station Agent Booth closest to 24th and Mission streets. 

While work happens on installing the first set of Next Generation Fare Gates, the second array of old gates will remain open for riders. There will be signage to direct riders to the open gates. Once the installation of the first set of new gates is complete, work will begin on the second array.

A temporary barrier will be installed to provide a safe workspace for the installation team as well as to protect riders from construction. Each new array is expected to take about two weeks to install. The latest work comes after BART successfully installed Next Generation Fare Gates at Civic Center, Fruitvale, and West Oakland stations. 

All BART stations will have new fare gates by the end of 2025. You can learn more about BART’s Next Generation Fare Gate project at bart.gov/about/projects/fare-gate. Riders can provide feedback about the new gates at bart.gov/comments.

On November 1, BART will begin the installation of Next Generation Fare Gates on the concourse level of Powell Street Station. The installation work will happen in stages so riders can continue to use the remaining current gates while new ones are being installed. There will be additional BART staff as well as signage to direct riders to the open gates. Installing each new array is expected to take up to two weeks to complete. The work is anticipated to continue into December when all six fare gate arrays are replaced at Powell Street Station.

A temporary barrier will be installed around the array to provide a safe workspace for the installation team as well as to protect riders from construction. The work will not impact train service, but riders may experience a few extra minutes wait to pass through the fare gates during peak travel hours.

The latest work comes after BART has successfully installed Next Generation Fare Gates at eight other stations across the system. All 50 BART stations will have new fare gates by the end of 2025. You can learn more about BART’s Next Generation Fare Gate project here. Riders can provide feedback about the new gates at bart.gov/comments.

The week of August 11th, BART will begin the installation of a second set of Next Generation Fare Gates on the concourse level of Civic Center Station. The work will happen at the fare gate entrance in the center of the concourse level of Civic Center Station near UN Plaza (Array 2 in the map).

A temporary barrier will be installed to provide a safe workspace for the installation team as well as to protect riders from construction. Installing this new array is expected to take about two weeks to complete. The station’s other two fare gate arrays will remain open during the installation work. There will be signage to direct riders to the open fare gates.

The latest work at Civic Center Station comes after BART successfully installed Next Generation Fare Gates at the Seventh Street entrance to the station in July. In April, crews successfully installed a Next Generation Fare Gate at the elevator entrance on the Civic Center platform. Once work on this set of gates is complete, BART will move forward with replacing the last remaining array of old gates.

All BART stations will have new fare gates by the end of 2025. You can learn more about BART’s Next Generation Fare Gate project here. Riders can provide feedback about the new gates at bart.gov/comments.

BART plans to move forward with the planned sunsetting of the EZ Rider Parking program. Existing EZ Rider customers may not be able to tap their Clipper card at the Parking Validation Machines (PVMs) as soon as July 1, 2024. Customers are encouraged to transition to Tap and Go Parking on the BART Official App, a new feature that allows for parking payment with one tap on the app. No hangtags or stall numbers needed. 

The software and machines supporting the EZ Rider parking program have reached the end of their useful life and are not compatible with the next generation of Clipper, necessitating the end of the program. 

EZ Rider customers can transition in two easy steps: 

1. Close your EZ Rider account. Log into ezrider.bart.gov, make sure your credit/debit card information is up-to-date, and close your account. A refund will be issued to the credit/debit card on file. A step-by-step EZ Rider account closure guide is available here. 
2. Register for Tap and Go on the BART Official App. Download the BART Official App, create an account, and register for Tap and Go under Daily Fee parking. No hangtags and no stall numbers needed. Pay for parking with one tap on the app.  

Riders who use Tap and Go have a smaller purse requirement compared to EZ Rider ($25 on Tap and Go, compared the $60+ on EZ Rider). Riders have more payment options on our app, including Paypal or Venmo.  

Existing EZ Rider customers may also choose to pay for Daily Fee parking as needed on the BART Official App without enrolling in Tap and Go, or pay for Daily Fee parking using credit, debit, or cash at the machines in the station (stall number required). 

For more information and FAQs, visit bart.gov/ezrider. 

This article was originally posted on April 9, 2024. 

Before revenue service began on Friday, July 5, 2024, BART crews found a rail defect on a trackway near 19th Street/Oakland Station.

No BART stations are closed but the Red Line is cancelled. We anticipate the Red Line to be cancelled all day but back in service tomorrow. Crews will make the necessary repairs tonight after revenue service ends. The rail defect does not appear to be heat related. Red Line trains will show as cancelled in real time departures and the Trip Planner. 

• San Francisco bound passengers coming from the Richmond direction who would normally take a Red Line train should take an Orange Line Berryessa train and transfer to a Yellow Line San Francisco train at MacArthur Station. 
• Richmond bound riders from Millbrae should board a shuttle train to SFO, then take the Yellow Line and transfer to an Orange Line train at MacArthur Station.

The incident is not causing major delays. 

BART Service Alerts are available via email, text, or customized push notifications in our official BART app. 

Text and email opt-in: http://cloud.info.bart.gov/signup 

On our app, select the profile icon and then notification settings. Set as many as you need for exactly when you typically ride BART. You will get push notifications of our alerts only during the selected times.

The week of December 1, BART will begin the installation of Next Generation Fare Gates on the concourse level of 12th Street/Oakland City Center Station. The installation work will happen in stages so riders can continue to use the remaining current gates while new ones are being installed. There will be additional BART staff as well as signage to direct riders to the open gates. Installing each new array is expected to take up to two weeks to complete. The work is anticipated to continue into January to allow for the replacement of all six fare gate arrays at 12th Street/Oakland City Center Station.

A temporary barrier will be installed around the array to provide a safe workspace for the installation team as well as to protect riders from construction. The work will not impact train service, but riders may experience a few extra minutes wait to pass through the fare gates during peak travel hours.

The latest work comes after BART has successfully installed Next Generation Fare Gates at ten other stations across the system. All 50 BART stations will have new fare gates by the end of 2025. You can learn more about BART’s Next Generation Fare Gate project here. Riders can provide feedback about the new gates at bart.gov/comments.

On Monday, July 28, BART accepted its 1,000th Fleet of the Future car from Alstom – Car No. 4690 – which pulled onto the Hayward Test Track around 4:30am. The car is pictured above just before departing Alstom's Plattsburgh, New York, facilities.

The car delivery is a major milestone for the Fleet of the Future project, to be completed in 2026 when BART accepts the final 1,129th car. 

Last year, the project entered its second (and current) phase when the final car of the original contract was delivered and certified. The project is expected to come in $394 million under budget thanks to a fast-paced production and delivery schedule as well as BART’s decision to have its own highly experienced staff do more of the engineering work in house. 

So what happens after a new BART car is delivered? Keep reading... 

To BART’s Casey Ungar, the process of accepting and certifying new BART rail cars is of a "very human” nature. 

Ungar is a Transportation Supervisor who oversees BART's Hayward Test Track, a 2.25-mile-long stretch of rail where BART accepts, tests, and prepares for service brand-new Fleet of the Future train cars.  

The picture he paints of the car certification operation is a romantic one: “Once the cars are delivered via flatbed, we maneuver them onto the test track, and then they kiss the third rail for the first time,” he explained.  

Steel meeting steel is just the first step of the robust certification procedure. By the time the cars arrive on BART property from Alstom’s manufacturing facilities in Plattsburgh, New York, they are nearly ready for showtime. But before they carry passengers in the system, the cars must go through a series of tests conducted by specialized BART and Alstom staff. 

Many transportation agencies don’t have their own test tracks. To certify new vehicles, they’ll transport them to facilities like the Transportation Technology Center in Pueblo, Colorado, or the vehicles are tested at the supplier's test track where the cars are manufactured.  

“BART is the only agency that tests cars like this,” said Ungar proudly. “No other agencies, that I’m aware of, take their cars up to 80 on their own test tracks."     

Transportation Supervisor Casey Ungar pictured on a newly accepted Fleet of the Future train car.

On a recent clear-skied day at the test track, Ungar pointed to his left at Car No. 4638, which was resting on the holding track. 

This car is a special one for Ungar. A few weeks earlier, Ungar was looking at Reddit when he saw a photo of the same car on the back of a flatbed departing Plattsburgh.  

“It was kind of cool for me to have that moment where someone was excited enough to take a photo [of Car 4638] and now here it is,” he said. 

“It’s going to be running on mainline come Tuesday, and on Wednesday, it’ll be part of our fleet. And on Thursday, people will be riding in it,” Ungar continued. “It’s really really cool to think of the lifecycle of these cars as something that’s very human, something that starts out so far away but is so personal for so many people and ends up doing such important work in the Bay Area.” 

The 1,000th car is pictured on the receiving ramp at Hayward Test Track.

For longtime Train Operator Kirk Paulsen, BART’s railcar certification is entwined with his own lifecycle. Paulsen has been a BART Train Operator for 31 years. He’s been working on the Fleet of the Future Project since the program started. A decade earlier, he was on this same track testing BART’s now-retired C2 cars.  

“I would have retired already, but I’m staying on to see this project through,” Paulsen said. “I’ve been here since Day One, when we had only a single car. This project is part of me." 

Train Operators on the test track must have finely honed skills. Out here, they’re in control of many of the car’s functions, whereas on the mainline, trains mostly operate under Automatic Train Operation (ATO), which controls speed of travel, safe separation distance with other trains, route interlocking control, and station stops.  

Longtime Test Track Train Operator Kirk Paulsen is pictured in a newly accepted car. 

The cars on the test track also run faster than they currently do while in-service, at speeds of up to 80mph; a computer plugged into the operating system puts the cars’ speed restriction codes into test mode, allowing them to travel at these higher speeds. 

On BART trains, D cars have cabs where the operators sit. These cars have all the buttons and levers laid out on a control panel in front of the operator’s seat. E cars — the ones sandwiched in the middle — don’t have operator cabs, but they can still be operated manually.  

To change speeds on E cars, the operator lifts and lowers a propulsion handle (P-handle) located in a locked panel near the front of the car. Working the P handle requires finesse. When Paulsen is operating it, his hand is steady and laser focused on the track before him. Though he references a speedometer, it’s evident he can interpret the speed of the car by feeling alone. 

It takes five days of testing to get the new cars cleared for carrying passengers. Typically, BART certifies five cars a week, said Darryl Lawrence, Alstom Product Introduction Commissioning Manager at the test track. Until the cars are certified, Lawrence pointed out, they’re technically still the property of Alstom.  

After delivery, an interesting process in and of itself (read about it here), the cars get a wash to remove “road grime" -- bugs and dirt and sleet in the winter – and then they’re off to an inspection barn where technicians connect the batteries, turn on circuit breakers, and bring the car to life with 1,000DC volts of power. Turning on the lights might not be as dramatic as Dr. Frankenstein’s monster coming to life -- “It’s alive! It’s alive!” -- but it’s exciting nonetheless. 

Then it's time to “bed the brakes.” Before the cars move on to the final testing stage, engineers have to get the friction brakes prepped ahead of the next stage of testing. Bedding the brakes gets the brake pads and brake rotors worn into each other in a controlled process of brake application – increasing the train speeds from 25mph to 40mph to 80mph then braking – and heating then cooling. Think about it like a new pair of fancy dress shoes. You take ‘em for their first spin, and you’re slipping all over the place. It takes a few wears, maybe scuffing them on the sidewalk, to increase resistance between the sole and the ground. Train car brakes abide by the same force. By slowly cranking up the speeds over a series of runs on the test tracks, the brakes literally heat up, giving them better grip. 

Stage three for the new car: dynamic acceptance testing. According to Edmund Tollefsen, Sr. Vehicle Systems Engineer on the Hayward Test Track, this series analyses the car’s acceleration, deceleration, speed limitation performance, and jerk, a term that describes change in acceleration.  

“In sum, it’s to make sure the cars are performing to the expected performance levels designed for safe rail travel,” Tollefsen explained. Ensuring safe operation is of course the most important consideration during any and all car testing.  

All modes of car movement are tested, including yard manual, road manual, reverse jog, coupling, and car wash (yes, there is a special mode for cars getting a scrub). 

At last, the final stage: acceleration and brake tests. Arguably the most cinematic part of the car certification process, during these tests, technicians analyze the car’s braking by running the trains down the test track at different speeds. There are three tests at 25mph, two at 40mph, and for the grand finale, two tests at 80mph. A train car going 80 can slow to zero in about 20 to 25 seconds, depending on which braking system is in use. 

“While these trains don’t stop on a dime, this is the closest you’ll see to it,” Ungar said.  

If everything goes to plan and the car passes its litany of tests, the engineers write up a report, submit it to the California Public Utilities Commission, and with the commission's stamp of approval, the car is officially certified. 

At last, the newly certified train car gets to “kiss the mainline,” and the car that traveled thousands of miles solo gets to fulfill its destiny as part of a unified whole – a train.  

 Read more stories about BART infrastructure at bart.gov/railtales