BART Board of Directors addresses recent system disruptions and delays

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — BART’s Board of Directors held a public meeting Thursday to address recent issues impacting the transit system, including major delays and systemwide disruptions. The meeting comes after a series of incidents that have affected BART services, starting with a smoke incident on August 29 that caused significant delays.

A blown rail insulator was identified as a potential issue, though the exact cause remains undetermined. A week later, on September 5, a computer malfunction led to a systemwide service disruption, further impacting commuters.

“I first want to apologize to our riders in the entire Bay Area, we failed, simply put we failed, our riders deserve better,” said BART Board President Mark Foley.

“When the train first stopped in the tunnel there was silence up to four minutes. After a while, when the smoke was coming and people were trying to go the connecting door, that’s when we first heard something, but that’s only when it first stopped,” said Alan Mond, a BART passenger during the August incident.

“This incident did not only impact the ability for folks to navigate around the Bay Area last Friday. It impacted our revenue and most importantly our reputation,” said a BART representative.

“I want to tell you there is no one that feels more worst about this than I and my team do, we have been working nonstop with our vendor since the event all through the weekend all through the week, our vendor is on site to figure out what to do next,” said Sylvia Lamb, assistant general manager of infrastructure delivery at BART.

During the public meeting, many attendees voiced their dissatisfaction with BART’s handling of recent incidents, particularly the communication breakdown during the smoke incident.

BART said it is actively working with its vendor to determine the next steps to prevent future disruptions. This includes reviewing the system network’s timeline to identify the root cause of the issues.

Foley expressed a commitment to improving BART services, stating, “I simply look forward to staff coming back together how we can improve moving forward.”

All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by KRON4. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat from a broadcast script into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by KRON4 staff before being published.