Top 22 BART accomplishments in 2022

2022 was focused on welcoming riders back as people began to venture out, attend large events, and return to the office. Our staff worked tirelessly to put out service to keep the Bay Area moving, adapt to the new normal, and celebrate our 50th anniversary.

2022 was not without its challenges such as cancelled trains from staffing shortages, service disruptions, and the ramifications of the housing and drug crisis.

Yet we accomplished many things. Here is our Top 22 for 2022:

Improvements to the Rider Experience

• In February, we returned to midnight service on Sundays, the last piece of service restoration following the pandemic. Then in September, we ended Sunday single tracking and locked in 5 line-service 7 days a week for the first time in history and rolled out a clock face base schedule to offer more predictability every day.
• Reopened underground restrooms at Powell, 19th Street Station, Lake Merritt, and Montgomery stations, all with full time attendants. 155,000 people have used these new restrooms in 2022.
• Resumed accepting new train cars in February and we are now running more Fleet of the Future trains than legacy trains.
• SFO is now easier to navigate with one center platform and new maps and signs to eliminate confusing decision points and keep the experience simple.
• Platform elevator fare gates are now at many stations, improving access by streamlining the path to tag Clipper, making it quicker to transfer from Muni to BART, and reducing fare evasion by bringing the elevator into the paid area.
• We upgraded all Add Fare Machines to (finally) take credit/debit cards to pay for parking and made it quicker to add money to exit the station.
• We helped launch Clipper BayPass, a prepaid, all-you-can-ride transit pass for participating college students and affordable housing residents. It is a pilot program studying the impact of a single pass with unlimited access to all bus, rail, and ferry service. It is a great example of how we are working with the MTC and other transit agencies to improve coordination. Jointly the transit agencies launched the www.allaboardbayarea.com website to showcase our coordination.
• We rolled out a new Elevator Dimension Guide to help assist cyclists navigate BART elevators as the popularity of longer and heavier bikes have soared.

Improving Safety

• You are now more likely than ever before to see safety staff on board a train or in a station with our new approach to increasing visible presence and using a combination of police officers and unarmed safety staff.
  • BPD officers through November made more felony arrests in 11 months than were made in any of the last four years thanks to high visibility patrols.
  • Our unarmed Transit Ambassadors patrolled 12,058 trains and made 6,909 educational contacts.
  • Our Crisis Intervention Specialists who are focused on connecting people in need with support services performed nearly 1,900 welfare checks across the system in just the last three months.
  • We saw a decrease in sexual harassment at BART according to passenger surveys. From 12% of surveyed riders saying they experienced harassment at BART in the last 6 months in 2021 to 9% in 2022.   
  • Electronic item thefts are down from their peak in October 2019 of 141 to 35 this October.
• We finished designing the prototypes of new fare gates and installed them at Rockridge station and at elevators at 13 stations. We began the official bid process to allow vendors across the world to propose off-the-shelf next generation fare gates that can’t be pushed through, jumped over, or maneuvered under.

Investments in Infrastructure:

• We completed a massive earthquake retrofit project of the Transbay Tube. We installed steal liners and a new pumping system. This work was very disruptive to riders due to the required single tracking at night. Starting in January, many riders will now experience more frequent transbay service at night with trains better spaced apart.
• The Measure RR rebuilding program is ahead of schedule with more than 40% of all work complete. That includes the replacement this year of a major trackway interlocking between the South Hayward and Union City stations. And we improved our Trip Planner to outline the customer journey during track shut downs that require bus bridges.

Improvements at Stations:

• We finished our multi-year modernization projects that transformed Powell Street Station in San Francisco, and 19th Street Station in Oakland. Both projects included elements to enhance safety as well as dramatic art to welcome riders.
• We now have 6 brand new escalators in downtown San Francisco with more on the way. These new units are under warranty and will improve reliability for our riders.

Planning for the Future:

• Our Link21 Program marked a major milestone earlier in the year by transitioning into the next phase of the program where we identify potential Link21 projects, including a new transbay train crossing. We got great public feedback during 23 virtual briefings, nine Speakers Bureau events, and 22 in-person tabling events at stations, community events, universities and a Tribal event.
• We adopted a balanced budget focused on improving the rider experience and prioritizing a clean and safe ride. We transitioned to a two-year budget cycle for the first time in a strategic move to improve long-term financial planning. Seeking to retain and grow ridership, we’ve laid out plans to maximize service delivery, manage expenses, and secure new revenue, while remaining focused on when federal emergency funds run out.
• We achieved 100% GHG-free electric supply for the third consecutive year including greater than 50% eligible renewable electricity led by new wholesale supply.

Addressing the Housing Crisis

• We made significant advancements in our Transit Oriented Development activities:
  • Opening of Phase I of the Walnut Creek TOD with 358 units occupied.
  • The veterans housing at our Millbrae TOD has 79 units occupied.
  • The Board approved a lease option for the first 457 homes at Lake Merritt and the developer team received final approvals for the senior affordable housing phase.
  • The Board selected the developer team for the North Berkeley TOD.
  • In July CalSTA awarded BART a first-of-its-kind $49M Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program (TIRCP) grant for station area improvements at transit-oriented development sites at El Cerrito Plaza, Lake Merritt, and West Oakland to support market-rate and affordable housing development and enhance station amenities.

Created Memorable Moments

• For our 50th anniversary our Lake Merritt station was transformed into a BART historical museum and thousands turned out for our 50th Birthday Party and Family Fun Festival which included games, music, merch, a time capsule, a film archive screening tent, and an opportunity to get up close to train tracks and safely touch the third rail! We launched a new history section on our website with easy to access historical documents, films and stories.
• We held a short story contest to fill our free story dispensers at Fruitvale, Downtown Berkeley, Balboa Park, and Pleasant Hill stations with local content. More than 340 Bay Area writers submitted short stories and 30 finalists were selected.  25,300 short stories have been dispensed.  
• We brought vintage arcade games to Powell Street station for a week in September offering free play for families.
• We enlisted the help of Pac-Man, a Harris hawk and his handler Ricky to keep pigeons away from El Cerrito del Norte. Besides helping keep the station clean of pigeon droppings, families love interacting with Pac-Man and Ricky on the platform.