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On Wednesday, May 7 BART will begin the installation of Next Generation Fare Gates on the concourse level of North Berkeley Station. The installation work will happen in stages so riders can continue to use the remaining gates while new ones are being installed. A temporary gate will also be installed to support entry and exit. There will be additional BART staff as well as signage to direct riders to the open gates. The installation of each new set of gates is expected to take up to two weeks to complete. The work to replace all three sets of fare gates at North Berkeley Station is expected to continue into June.

A temporary barrier will be installed around each set of gates when it is ready to be removed to provide a safe workspace for the installation team as well as to protect riders from construction. The work will not delay train service, but riders may experience a few extra minutes wait to pass through the gates during peak travel hours.

The latest work comes after BART has successfully installed Next Generation Fare Gates at 29 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 Gates project here.

On Wednesday, May 21, BART will begin the installation of Next Generation Fare Gates on the concourse level of 19th Street Station in Oakland. The installation work will happen in stages so riders can continue to use the remaining gates while new ones are being installed. There will be additional BART staff as well as signage to direct riders to the open gates. The installation of each new set of gates is expected to take up to two weeks to complete. The work to replace all four sets of fare gates at 19th Street Station is expected to continue through June.

A temporary barrier will be installed around each set of gates when it is ready to be removed to provide a safe workspace for the installation team as well as to protect riders from construction. The work will not delay 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 35 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 Gates project here.

Update: June 26, 2024 7:15 am

Crews moved our maintenance vehicle out of the way last night. 

The Red Line returned to service when we opened this morning.

We apologize for the inconvenience it caused and we thank our riders for their patience.

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At about 3:30am on Wednesday, June 26, 2024, a BART track maintenance vehicle derailed near 19th Street/Oakland Station blocking one set of tracks.

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. 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. 
• Millbrae riders should take the Yellow Line.
• Orange Line trains coming from Richmond will need to divert to West Oakland after 12th St. Station and then turn back towards the Berryessa direction. So they will run: 12th St, West Oakland, Lake Merritt, and so on. Orange Line trains coming from Berryessa don’t need to do this.
• Platform 2 at 19th Street/Oakland Station is closed and trains may be stopping at a different platform that usual at 12th and 19th St stations.

The incident is not causing major delays. 

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

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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.

BART will begin the installation of Next Generation Fare Gates on Friday, October 11 at San Francisco International Airport Station. The station has a total of four sets of fare gates, two on the upper level and two on the lower level. Workers will replace one set on each level of the station simultaneously. While this work is being done, a set of the old gates will remain open for riders on each level. There will be signage to direct riders to the open gates. There will also be additional staff on site to help direct riders. Once the installation of the first two sets of new gates is complete, work will begin on replacing the third and fourth arrays.

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 up to two weeks to install. The latest work comes after BART successfully installed Next Generation Fare Gates at 24th Street Mission, Antioch, Civic Center, Fruitvale, Oakland International Airport, Richmond, 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 here. Riders can provide feedback about the new gates at bart.gov/comments.

On Friday, June 6 BART will begin the installation of Next Generation Fare Gates on the concourse level of Bay Fair Station. The installation work will happen in stages so riders can continue to use the remaining gates while new ones are being installed. A temporary gate will be installed to support entry and exit. There will be additional BART staff as well as signage to direct riders to the open gates. There will also be a service gate available for those riders who would typically use an accessibility gate.

The installation of each new set of gates is expected to take up to two weeks to complete. The work to replace all three sets of fare gates at Bay Fair Station is expected to continue into July.

A temporary barrier will be installed around each set of gates when it is ready to be removed to provide a safe workspace for the installation team as well as to protect riders from construction. The work will not delay train service, but riders may experience a few extra minutes wait to pass through the gates during peak travel hours.

The latest work comes after BART has successfully installed Next Generation Fare Gates at 36 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 Gates project here.

Half of the 1,200-pound bull gear ready for installation at 12th St. Oakland Station.

The sun has just risen in a wash of pink and purple over BART’s Oakland Shops, and four men dressed in blue are standing around a giant gear.  

It looks like a bicycle gear with its interlocked steel circles rimmed with teeth. But this gear is big. Very big.  

Known as a bull gear, this 1,200-pound steel beast can be found in all of BART’s 175 escalators. Like its namesake, its job is to pull heavy loads, in this case, moving the belt of an escalator used by thousands of BART passengers each day.  

The bull gear in question belongs in an escalator that carries riders from the concourse at 12th St. Station to the platform. Many of the escalator’s components, including the bull gear, are nearly as old as the BART system.  

Recently, the gear’s bearings were starting to wear, meaning the ride was not as smooth as it should be. So BART’s Elevator/Escalators Maintenance team sprung into action, taking the escalator out of service so the gear could be removed, renovated, and reinstalled in a matter of weeks. Like the gear, it was a big job.  

Escalator techs Mehdi Nategh and Brian McMurtrie and escalator tech trainees Austin Eagleston and Luis Gonzalez separate the bull gear with a forklift and load it onto a cart at BART's Oakland Shops.

When this bull gear wore out, rather than ordering a new gear with a price tag in the tens of thousands, the maintenance team saw an opportunity to save money in BART’s operating budget by refurbishing it with new bearings and bolts. The renovated part should provide a smooth and safe ride for years to come.  

“We are mitigating problems as they arise,” said Eric Stockton, Section Manager of Elevator/Escalator Maintenance. “Customer service is our number one focus at BART, and escalators play a big role in that.” 

So how do you fix a bull gear? Unfortunately, you can’t tinker with it while it’s installed in an escalator. That means Eric’s team has to take the escalator apart, then use a chain fall (a gear system used to raise and lower loads) to lift the bull gear onto a flatbed cart.  

These gears are too large to fit in BART’s elevators, so the gear must be wrenched in half with a forklift to split it into two, more manageable pieces. Then up the escalator into the light of day, onto the back of a truck, and off to the parts repair shop for a makeover.  

 

 

 

 

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On this particular morning at the Oakland Shops, the four men standing over the refurbished 12th St. Bull gear were tasked with getting it back into its escalator home. That meant, repeating all the steps above but in reverse.  

By 8am, the men were off to 12th St., one truck carrying the cloven gear, another carrying their tools. You can watch some of the reinstallation process in the above video. 

It took about a month to get the bull gear in place and the parts attached to get the escalator back in service. It’s worth the hard work, said Mehdi Nategh, the team lead who’s been working on escalators for almost thirty years.  

“These bull gears can last more than twenty years,” he said.  

Carrying parts into the station.

While escalator tech Brian McMurtrie and escalator tech trainees Austin Eagleston and Luis Gonzalez prepped the gear from the top, Nategh went down in the machine room directly beneath the escalator. Here, the inner workings of an escalator come to light. As the escalator moves above, you can see the drive chain turning in an endless loop, powered by a drive machine with a gearbox and 480-volt AC motor.  

Being down there changes your perspective. When you step onto an escalator, you probably don’t stop to think about how it runs or the little mechanical world beneath it.  

Once the bull gear is in place there is much more work to be done.  

“We have to hook up the handrails, put the steps backs in, I'm sure there are some sensors we need to replace,” said Gonzalez.  

A few weeks later, once the work was complete, a joy ride of the escalator demonstrated the work paid off. The ride was smooth and quiet as the refreshed bull gear pulled us along. 

Mehdi Nategh in the machine room.

BART riders will benefit from faster train speeds through the downtown Oakland core service area following the repair of an essential power substation. Last summer, the substation located near 19th Street Station failed after experiencing a fault, requiring BART to realign power distributions from nearby redundant substations while repairs were being made. This configuration required BART to run trains at slower speeds in the track areas approaching MacArthur, 19th Street, and 12th Street stations. Trains were also metered into these stations, causing frequent but short train holds. This service plan caused delays of about three minutes, but those delays could compound when other incidents occurred in the system.

Crews have been diligently working to get the substation back to full operations, and late last week, the substation was successfully brought online. Over the weekend, normal speeds were restored. Trains no longer need to run at 27 mph through the area and are now travelling up to 70 mph.

2025 will be an important year for fortifying and expanding BART’s power substations. Another substation located east of the Transbay Tube is being fully renovated, and two new power substations located near Civic Center and Montgomery stations will also be coming online this year. This work plays a key role in ensuring that BART’s power system infrastructure is robust, reliable, and ready for the future. 

BART Directors have extended the highly successful restroom and attendant programs for another two years. The Board voted to award new contracts to provide attendants at the stations where they are already working through June 30, 2027. 

“The service these attendants provide are a vivid example of the type experience we need to offer the public,” said BART Board President Mark Foley. “A smile, a pleasant greeting and a professional attitude make a big difference – and these attendants keep our elevators and restrooms in the safe and clean condition our riders deserve.” 

The elevator attendant program began in 2018 at downtown San Francisco stations, with attendants in the elevators at all times trains were running, making sure users were following the rules, getting to where they needed to go and contacting BART staff with any issues.  

The program later expanded to all four downtown San Francisco stations: Embarcadero, Montgomery St., Powell St. and Civic Center. 

The restroom attendant program began in 2022 when BART reopened remodeled restrooms at Powell St. and 19th Street in Oakland. The restroom attendants make sure the restrooms are being used for their intended purpose and provide a friendly, safe presence.  

Restroom attendants are on duty while trains are in service at all four downtown San Francisco stations, 19th Street and Lake Merritt in Oakland and Downtown Berkeley Station. 

The attendants are one reason restroom availability survey results increased six percent in BART’s most recent Customer Satisfaction Survey compared to the previous survey.   

For the third year in a row, BART is bringing holiday magic with a transit twist to Rockridge BART Station Plaza!  

Join us to celebrate the season, show off your Bay Area pride, and rock the iconic BART holiday sweater. The free, family-friendly event will be held from 1pm to 3pm on Saturday, Dec. 13.  

We’ll have some new activities this year, including rides on the BARTmobile through a whimsical winter wonderland, as well as some only-at-SweaterFest exclusives. 

Haven’t snagged this year’s design yet? You can purchase one and other BART merchandise at the SweaterFest Railgoods Pop-Up Shop (or buy one ahead of time on Railgoods.com or a station pop-up). If you missed the red or green sweater presale colors, you're in luck – we’ve saved a stash just for SweaterFest.  

At the end of the event, we’ll gather for a group photo in our sweaters at 3pm. Rock this year’s sweater or a vintage one from years past. 

And if you’re collecting stamps in your BART Stamp Passport, bring it to the event to get the 2025 SweaterFest stamp.  

What to expect: 

• Railgoods Pop-Up Shop
• Rides on the BARTmobile through a mini winter wonderland
• Festive live band
• Giant snow globe photo op
• Transit-themed crafts
• Raffle
• Stamp rally 

Bundle up, bring your holiday spirit, and let’s make merry together! 

The group photo from SweaterFest '23. 

BART is making more progress with its effort to replace aging fare gates at all 50 stations by the end of this year. This week BART will begin installing Next Generation Fare Gates at Concord, Glen Park, and San Leandro stations. Work is also scheduled to begin next week at El Cerrito Plaza Station. The latest work comes after BART has successfully installed Next Generation Fare Gates at 22 stations across the system.

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.

You can learn more about BART’s Next Generation Fare Gates project here