Wishful Thinking

I use to ride Bart everyday to work but now prefer driving to the city (inspite of the gas prices!!) at least two days a week. I don't understand why BART continues to raise their fare prices, yet they don't really do anything with that extra money. If Bart wants to encourage people to ride BART on a commuter basis they should think about providing monthly incentives; i.e. better prices for commuters. How about cleaning your train seats more often? How about making BART stations in the East Bay a little safer? How about providing the right amount of additional trains to East Bay at rush hour times?

As a transit system that can get me from point A to point B, it's not bad. Unless the train catches fire or some other horrible incidents happens ,you are on-time. I appreciate that. But I hate traveling during rush hours in this Public transportation, because everyone working in the city rides BART and during high traffic times I'm smashed into one of the cars like a freaky clown sardine.

What's up with Pittsburg/Baypoint?

So, I was waiting for my Fremont train and in the 10 minutes that I waited, 3 friggin' Pittsburg/Baypoint trains went by and were all partially filled. Then comes my Fremont train and what do I see, it's a 9 car train and it's packed !!!!

What's up with the Pittsburg/Baypoint train? What makes it so special that it has trains every 3 minutes??? A few months ago, I sent an email to BART asking them same issue. Here it goes:

===================================================================
My email:
Subject: SF <-> Fremont service
Comments: Dear Sir/Madam:

I have noticed that the frequency of trains going from SF to Fremont is approx. every 18 minutes during rush-hours. I also noticed that you have more trains going to Pittsburg/Bay Point every 8 minutes. These trains are often empty whereas the ones going to Fremont are ALWAYS packed.

Is there anything that can be done such that there are more frequent trains to Fremont and a bit less frequent trains to Pittsburg/Bay Point?

Additionally, trains going to SF from Fremont after 7am have only 9 cars. They used to have 10 cars a month ago. This is causing the trains to be overpacked. Can you increase the number of cars to 10 again?

You have increased the rates by 25 cents and decreased the number of cars. Additionally, the frequency on the Milbrae line has increased but there has been no changes to the Fremont line. The number of people traveling on the Fremont line has increased dramatically and it would be great if you can make our commuting day a bit more comfortable.

Thank you
Ravnish Gupta

Reply:

Thank you for contacting us. As you have noted, commute periods will experience a heavier load than most other times with all available cars in-service. The limited fleet is distributed in response to the regular, proven demand of the entire system. Regular reviews of each line are conducted along each entire route to identify the regular passenger load. Where demand identifies that additional cars are needed and where on other trains they exist and can be offered up, adjustments are made within the limits of resources. Factors in the observations include the amount of standing passengers in each car and for how much of the train's trip does that condition exist. Some trains may have many standing passengers in the middle cars, yet very few standing in the first or last cars. As well, trains may seem full only a portion of the trip. Please note that a lack of seating does not necessarily constitute a full train as the cars are designed to accommodate many standees as well as having all seats occupied. If you are in downtown Oakland or downtown SF when you view those "empty" trains going to Pittsburg/Bay Point, please keep in mind that they are running in the reverse commute direction, but that when they reach Pittsburg and begin their return, they will also fill with passengers destined for downtown Oakland and Downtown SF.
Meanwhile I will share your message with the appropriate office.
===================================================================
Go figure !!

Hey your bag is not gonna leave you !!!

The train is packed but some people don't want to take off their big bulky bags of their backs and make room for others. I was standing and this lady had her bag on her back and every time the train moved, the bag hit me and I was pushed into my wife. Come on lady, the bag is not gonna run away !! Just remove it, hold it and make room for others !!

IPods and Singers !!

What's really pisses me off is when people are listening to their Ipods at such high volume that either don't care or realize that the whole frrrreakin' train can hear it as well. The best part is that the whole train may be giving them bad looks but they won't care. Come on people, there is something called "COURTESY" and if you don't know what it means, check out dictionary.com.

So, in addition to this whole Ipod crap, today we had a singer in the train. The lady was listening to her Ipod and singing on top of her voice !!!! Hey this is not American Idol or your shower, this is the BART and be courteous to your fellow passengers !!

9 cars or 10 cars !!

I take the train from Union City to Embarcadero. I don't seem to understand why the LED's display that it's a 9 car train when in fact it's a 10 car train. With gas prices soaring and the number of commuters increasing, I do believe that BART has the 'necessary funding' to fix this 'problem'.