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Note: Janet Bennett’s tile murals have come to define the character of BART's Mission District stations, and yet, in the fifty-plus years since the tiles were placed, her contribution has gone unattributed...This Women’s History Month, BART is honored to bring forward the story of the artworks as well as that of the wonderful midcentury artist who made them.

BART will be installing plaques at 16th St. Mission and 24th St. Mission stations to recognize Bennett as the artist behind the character-defining murals. 

Janet Bennett, the artist behind the tile murals at 16th St. and 24th St. Mission stations, seated in front of one of her paintings in her New York City home. 

Every day, thousands of people pass through BART’s Mission District stations in San Francisco. As they enter the fare gates, walk along the concourse toward the stairs, then onto the platform to await their trains, they are walking through history.  

It’s a history wrought by many hands over more than five decades: the planners who mapped the system, the architects and engineers who drafted the plans, and the workers who sweated day by day to construct a transit space that would function not just during their lifetimes, but the lifetimes of their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on.  

BART stations serve a practical purpose, of course. But they are not solely utilitarian spaces. Stories are woven into their floors, their trackways, and their walls. These individual components speak together and alone, and if you take a moment to pause and investigate, they might reveal the stories they contain. 

Artist Janet Bennett, now 95 years old and long retired, is a protagonist in the story of 16th St. and 24th St. stations. During the construction of these transit spaces, Bennett was hired by the station architect, Hertzka and Knowles, to design the striking tile murals on the stations' concourse and platform walls. Next time you’re passing through, look around and you’ll find you are surrounded by her tile artworks, from the snaking yellow formations on the platform at 24th St. to the tree-like waves of green and blue that dance on the concourse at 16th St.  

“It’s gratifying that these works are still a part of people’s lives,” said Bennett, speaking from her New York City home. “They’ve gone through different lifespans so to speak. I’m happy that my tiles remain and that they’ll be there quite a while longer.” 

Bennett's tile murals pictured on the concourses at 16th St. (top photo) and 24th St. (bottom photo). 

Bennett’s tile murals have come to define the character of the Mission stations, and yet, in the fifty-plus years since the tiles were placed, her contribution has gone unattributed. Said Jennifer Easton, BART’s Art Program Manager: “As a woman and someone who works with artists all the time, it’s so common to see women artists obscured throughout history.” BART learned about Bennett and her connection to the Mission stations after her daughter, Maria McDonald, called BART Customer Services and told them that “my 95-year-old mother named Janet Bennett should be credited as the designer of the ceramic tile artworks at 16th and 24th St. stations.” She added: “It means a lot to her.” BART verified McDonald's claim via 1971 news clippings from local papers.

This Women’s History Month, BART is honored to bring forward the story of the artworks as well as that of the wonderful midcentury artist who made them.  

“She really is a creative genius in my estimation,” said McDonald.   

When Bennett was working as a staff and consultant for architectural firms and corporations in the 60s and 70s, she “was constantly breaking the glass ceiling and unconsciously taking on the lead in roles usually reserved for men,” her daughter said.  

Bennett acknowledged that during that period, she was the only woman working for these major architecture firms outside of the secretarial staff. Even before then, when she was a student at Cranbrook, an art and design school in Michigan, Bennett said “no one expected that I would be anything but an architect’s wife.” 

“It didn’t bother me at the time,” she said. “I was just doing my thing.”  

(A relevant side note: Bennett also designed the famous mosaic passages at LAX, and her boss at the time, Charles Kratka, was long credited as the artist behind the works. Bennett set the record straight in 2007 after reading an obituary for Kratka that named him as the designer. She is now widely credited as the artist behind the mosaics. The artistic similarities between the LAX murals and the BART works certainly reinforce her claim.) 

When the station architect contacted Bennett about designing the tile murals, she said she was “very, very excited.” Much anticipation and curiosity swirled around this new “Space Age” transit project, and Bennett was intrigued by the idea of leaving her mark on the system.

Upon accepting the assignment, Bennett got to work in her San Francisco studio outlining on paper the concepts for the murals. Once the initial designs were greenlit by the architect, Bennett executed the working drawings, which indicated the placement of every single tile. It was a lengthy and painstaking process.  

Bennett said the designs at each station intentionally contrast with one another – there’s the dry, sunny feeling at 24th St. with its terra cottas and yellows and tans, and then the cooler tone of 16th St. with tiles of olive and gray and yellow green.  

“One mural is more earthy, while the other is more sylvan,” she said. “Those concepts helped me create the overall program.” 

Bennett’s artworks often reference “something from life,” and in many cases, she lets the colors and their relationships to one another inform her pieces. For 24th St., she referenced the vibrant hues of the Mission District and its close cultural ties to Latin America. The horizontal tiles that wrap around the core structures on the platform represent a yellow serpent, she said. 

At 16th St., Bennett was influenced by visits to Marin County, its singular “forests, grasslands, and water.”  

"Overall, the concern was that the colors worked well together,” Bennett said. “Part of it was motivated by a feeling that I wanted to express." 

Bennett frequently traveled to Marin to meet with the tile maker for the project, the historic Heath Ceramics, which was and still is known for its unique glazes and handcrafted tiles. Heath Ceramics was founded by Edith Heath in 1948 in Sausalito, and its architectural tile line had gained acclaim with many architects throughout California by the time Bennett was working in the industry. Bennett said she collaborated closely with Heath to create the color palette for the BART station tile glazes, which she believes were custom made for the project. 

Ceramic tiles are expensive, but you will notice that many BART stations incorporate them. That's because the material is durable, easy to clean, and conveys a sense of handcraftmanship, much like the use of wood, unique concretes, marble, and other unique architectural finishes used in the early BART stations. Bennett’s longstanding tile murals are a testament to the durability and timelessness of these materials. 

The large ten-inch tiles Bennett used for her project added to its cost, she said. Because they were so large, the tiles sometimes warped during the firing process and had to be tossed out. 

The architects of the stations also had something of a bone to pick with Bennett’s decision to use a horizontal tile layout on the core structures of the platform at 24th St.  

“The architects said the horizontal tiles complicated the overall layout, and therefore were too time-consuming and costly to use. They said I should change my working drawings,” Bennett said. “I countered that it would cost more to redraw them." 

“So,” she said triumphantly, “the horizontal tiles remain.”  

After perfecting the drawings and selecting the last tiles, Bennett finally handed the project to the tile layers. The workers installed the tiles one at a time with special care and attention. Their skilled work in tandem with Bennett’s amaranthine designs has ensured that these murals will remain for many years to come. 

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A portrait of the artist.

Bennett has left a mark on many public spaces, including those in the Bay Area where she lived for a time. She said she created works for a variety of local institutions: metal mobiles for the Ice House, a longstanding set of buildings in San Francisco’s Waterfront District; an illuminated acrylic and steel sculpture for Memorex, considered to be one of Silicon Valley’s first tech startups; and even a stage set for a San Francisco Opera gala.  

Back in the 60s and 70s, Bennett said her artworks were mostly considered “decorative” because of their functional usage in architectural settings. She thinks the term demeans her work and its artistic value.    

“I didn’t think of my work as merely decorative,” she said. “Heck, [by that definition] Michelangelo ‘decorated’ the Sistine Chapel. It’s applied art made to enhance a space and give dignity to it." 

Many of Bennett’s artworks have disappeared in time, just like the buildings and businesses that housed them. But she recognizes that "often art is here one day and gone the next.”  

“Artwork has its moment,” she said, “and sometimes that’s it. But artwork as part of architecture can exist for centuries.”  

Though Bennett’s art practice mostly consists of painting these days, she says she’d consider taking on another mural commission if the right project came along.  

“If somebody contacts me because of this article, I could certainly do this type of work again,” she said. “I don’t have the strength to set the tiles, but I certainly have the strength to design some murals.” 

An Engineering Marvel: "Nobody has a tube like ours" 

September 16, 1974, was a banner day in the history of the Bay Area. On this day, 50 years ago, BART’s Transbay Tube opened for passenger service.  

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The 3.6-mile-long Tube was unlike anything the world had ever seen. At the time, it was the longest immersed tube in the world, a title it held until 2010, and it mystified the public, who were mesmerized by the idea of a miles-long structure sitting 135 feet below the water’s surface. To some, it was a preposterous notion – train rides under the ocean?!? -- but the nonbelievers quickly hushed on that fateful day in 1974. They, too, wanted to take an underwater voyage from Oakland to San Francisco.  

This is the story of a modern marvel – its past, present, and future. It is also a story about people – those who ushered the Tube into existence and those who are still working to ensure it stands for generations to come. Long after all of us have departed this earth, the Tube will remain.  

On the Transbay Tube’s 50th anniversary, BART honors this one-of-a-kind structure that has ferried millions of passengers across the Bay for five decades and will continue to do so for decades to come. In the above video, we invite you to look inside the engineering opus for yourself. 

1961: The first concept drawing of the Transbay Tube. 

It was 1973 when budding actor Kenny Meyers got a job power washing the Tube to prepare it for its public debut. After that first gig with BART, Meyers never left. He retired from BART after 48 years in 2021. 

Meyers still remembers showing up to that first interview in a suit and tie, not totally sure what position he had applied for. He needed a job and didn’t care much what it entailed.  

“During the interview, the supervisor asked one question: ‘Do you have jeans?” Meyers remembered. “When I nodded, he said, ‘Great. Wear ‘em tomorrow and show up here at this time.’” 

Meyers did as he was told, and after a month as a utility worker, he was sent to the Tube with a fellow worker and a 300-foot hose. Their task: wash the dusty walls before the structure’s premiere.  

"At the time, I didn’t know anything about the project,” said Meyers. “We were looking at each other going, what is this thing? At 20 years old, it was an eye-opening experience. That’s when I realized how crazy engineering is.” 

Not many people have had the chance to see the Tube where it lay – only specially trained divers who can navigate the zero-visibility waters and perhaps the ghosts of long-ago shipwrecks. It’s not just mud and muck down there, though there is plenty of that. There are waves of sand – not unlike the dunes on land – deep holes, and huge mounds of rock. Sharks, whales, porpoises, fish – all the creatures that call the Bay home – float above this feat of engineering that sits 135 feet below the surface at its maximum depth.  

It’s another world down there, and it’s in this world one is zooming through at 70 miles per hour when riding a BART train from Oakland to San Francisco.  

Most of us aren't paying a lot of attention when we make this familiar voyage. We’ve got things to do, phones to scroll, books to read. The exception may be the many generations of children mesmerized by the quick trip through the ocean’s depths, their eyes glued to the windows in the hopes of seeing a leopard shark or a playful seal. 

The Tube isn’t translucent, and if it were, you wouldn’t see anything that deep in the water anyways. But in 1974, not long after the Tube opened, Meyers wanted to make a couple of kids’ day.  

Various Transbay Tube mementos are pictured. 

He got his chance one afternoon when a train came to a halt right in front of a vent in the upper gallery of the Tube, where Meyers happened to be standing.  

“I pushed my face right up to the vent and made a face like I was swimming,” he said. “The kids screamed! They really thought I was swimming down there.” 

Back when the Tube first opened, Meyers said people thought of it like Disneyland’s Monorail or its submarine ride, where you look out the windows and see all the animatronic mermaids and fish flapping around.  

“People would ride it like they were at an amusement park, just for fun,” Meyers said. “It was one of a kind! It was over the top!” 

“There's nothing really down there, though. No Starbucks or anything,” Meyers clarified. “Maybe I should push for that...” 

A drawing of the cross-section of the Tube in the San Francisco Bay.

The diagram of the Tube is pretty simple when it comes down to it (at least it looks that way). There are two bores, each with one trackway. Trains move west from West Oakland Station through the right bore (when looking from Oakland) and east from Embarcadero Station through the left bore. It’s not visually dissimilar to a giant pair of super long-lensed binoculars.  

Between the bores there is an upper gallery and a lower gallery for pedestrian access, ventilation, and utilities. Workers use the galleries to get around the Tube, as evidenced by Meyer’s prank, sometimes on specialized vehicles that are akin to narrow golf carts. There are also bicycles on hand in case a cart loses its charge. Or you can make the trek back to land by foot.  

BART staff enter the tube via five-story vent structures located on either end. Once you descend, you either start walking, cycling, or hitch a ride on a cart. There’s nowhere to go but through or back where you came from.  

What’s it like down there? Pretty dark, for one, and despite cleanings, it’s a bit grimy thanks to all the brake dust from the trains. It’s also blustery due to fans that are constantly circulating air – you better be hanging onto your baseball cap if you get too close.  

Then there’s the motion of the trains coming in and out. “When the trains come through, there’s wind blasting through the cracks of the gallery doors,” Meyers said. “Once it leaves, there’s a suction effect. A train in a Tube is not unlike a piston.” 

Meyers added that the Tube has a very specific smell that he can’t quite place his finger on. “But after I get out of there, I’d smell like it for a week.” 

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The Tube isn’t a Disney creation, but there's magic inside, especially when you’re zooming through in the front cab or the very end of a train. In the latter scenario, thanks to the glow of the brake lights, you feel like you’re passing through giant scarlet smoke rings, bigger than any talking caterpillar could blow, as you move through each of the structure’s 57 segments.  

By the way, Kenny Meyers isn't the only actor whose hung around the Tube. In 1971 while the structure was still being built, George Lucas filmed a scene for his first feature film, THX 1138. In the film, Robert Duvall is shown climbing "up" from the subterranean Orwellian world, but he's actually crawling horizontally through the Tube. The structure has also appeared in Predator 2, Eve of Destruction, Eye for an Eye, The Shannara Chronicles, and an episode of Nash Bridges, among others. Its sounds were even in the videogame Dead Space.  

I. An Underwater Bay Crossing is Born

With zero fictional embellishments, the Tube is as fantastic as something Ray Bradbury or Philip K. Dick might envision. So, we’re left with the question: How did BART bring this crazy thing from the realm of imagination into the realm of reality? 

You could say it started with San Francisco’s beloved eccentric Emperor Norton. In 1872, the man who proclaimed himself “Emperor of the United States” issued a proclamation proposing the idea of an underwater rail tunnel that would cross the San Francisco Bay. A few months later, he made another proclamation threatening to arrest Oakland and San Francisco leaders who rudely ignored his initial request.  

“Believing Oakland Point to be the proper and only point of communication from this side of the Bay to San Francisco, we, Norton I, Dei gratia Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, do hereby command the cities of Oakland and San Francisco to make an appropriation for paying the expense of a survey to determine the practicability of a tunnel under water; and if found practicable, that said tunnel be forthwith built for a railroad communication.” 

- Emperor Norton’s Tunnel Proclamation of May 12, 1872 

Fast forward to 1947, and Emperor Norton’s grand designs were finally being put into play. That was the year a joint Army-Navy Commission issued their recommendation for an underwater Tube to relieve traffic congestion on the ten-year-old Bay Bridge. Even then traffic was terrible, despite the relief provided by Key System streetcars that ran on the lower deck of the bridge until 1958.  

A copy of the front page of a 1920 San Francisco Chronicle.  

After multiple seismic studies, a soil investigation program, and even the installation of an earthquake recording system on the floor of the Bay, a preliminary route was selected that would avoid as much bay bedrock as possible. Actually, the route wasn’t that far off from the one Emperor Norton initially proposed. The cost of the project was estimated at $132,720,000 (or about $1.4 billion in 2023 dollars) and was to be financed by toll revenues. 

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Top image: The route of the Transbay Tube depicted by the square dotted line in a photograph taken during the final stages of construction.  

Bottom image: 1967: A concept drawing demonstrating how the Transbay Tube would be deposited on the floor of the Bay.  

Construction began in 1965 as a joint venture of Peter Kiewit Sons’ Co.; Raymond International, Inc.; Tidewater Construction Corp.; and Healy-Tibbitts Construction Co. Together, they were known as the Trans-Bay Constructors. They kicked things off with a Tube groundbreaking ceremony in 1966 that featured a literal boatload of dignitaries watching a dredge bring up the first of more than 5.7 million cubic yards of Bay mud. It was groundbreaking in every sense of the word.  

The contract called for a demanding two-and-a-half-year deadline for completion of the basic structure, so the Trans-Bay Constructors developed a fierce schedule at a pace of building and placing two Tube sections a month. There simply wasn’t time to make mistakes. 

A photo of a section of the Tube under fabrication at Bethlehem Shipyards in South San Francisco.  

The Tube is made up of 57 sections, each averaging 330 feet in length. The segments were fabricated at Bethlehem Shipyards in South San Francisco, from which they were launched, towed into the bay, and then sunk into their proper positions.  

To get the just barely buoyant segments to the bottom of the bay, each was weighted with 500 tons of gravel ballast. One section weighed approximately 10,000 pounds, about 1/6 of the weight of a BART car. Lowering one segment required a complex system of hydraulic controls and strain gauges that allowed operators to monitor the weight distribution and keep each section level during descent.  

Circa 1969: A section of the Transbay Tube being floated into the Bay. 

Divers were waiting at the bottom of the bay to direct the segments into exact position. When they surfaced, the divers climbed into two decompression chambers on the barge. It wasn’t 20,000 leagues under the sea, but it was still pretty darn deep.  

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Concurrently, the trench for the Tube continued to be excavated. About 5.7 million cubic yards of material were removed from the bay. To keep the trench precisely aligned, engineers installed lasers from different shore positions that pinpointed the exact position required for the dredging barges.  

In the end, the contractors met their schedule. The last section of the Tube was placed just east of Yerba Buena Island in 1969. Later that year, BART held an open house on both sides of the Bay, inviting members of the public to walk through two sections of the Tube. It was reported that the line to get inside stretched more than a mile.

With the segments in place and any stragglers cleared, the next tasks were laying the track, electrification, and installing the train control equipment and ventilation. The process took about four years, and in August 1973, the first train traveled through the Tube. About a year later, trains were carrying their first passengers across the bay.

Come 1974, the original BART system was officially complete.  

Tube sections were built from both the San Francisco and Oakland sides. When the last bulkhead was removed to finally connect the Tube, workers from the San Francisco side found Oakland-side workers Don Hughes and Shad Wilson enjoying champagne together.

II. Loma Prieta: "BART's Finest Hour"

The Tube was just a teenager, barely old enough for a driver’s license, when it was put to a terrifying test. On Oct. 17, 1989, the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Coast for eight to 15 seconds, depending on where you were located. Sixty-three people died and 3,757 people were injured. In the aftermath, among other impacts, 12,000 homes and 2,600 business were damaged; the Cypress Street Viaduct on Interstate 880 collapsed; and about 1.4 million people lost power, temporarily knocking radio and tv stations off the air.  

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Then there was the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. A 76-foot-by-50-foot section of the upper deck fell onto the lower deck, causing severe damage and one fatality. The bridge is pictured after the earthquake (image courtesy of Flickr). 

"There were reports of the bridge being down, flooding and fires in the city, we knew it was serious,” said Frank Wilson, BART General Manager at the time of Loma Prieta, in a 2014 interview with BART. “We thought, 'If the damage was that severe around us, what has BART sustained?' It was all hands-on deck to assess safety and find out how we were going to get back into service." 

At the same moment Loma Prieta started shaking the Bay, Donna “Lulu” Wilkinson was operating a train at 80 miles per hour through the Transbay Tube.  

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“I didn’t even feel it,” she said in a 2014 interview. She was halfway through the Tube when the Operations Control Center gave the order to stop and hold position. Passengers didn’t panic because they were accustomed to short holds in the Tube – standard operating procedure even for minor earthquakes. Most of them didn't notice a thing.  

“The Tube absorbed the shock,” Wilson said. “When the engineers and planners first built the system, they were criticized by some from the outside that it was too expensive and unnecessary. But how much is a life worth? How much was it worth to keep people moving between Oakland and San Francisco?” 

Calls began flooding into the Operations Control Center from employees asking for earthquake assignments, while those on the job gathered their wits and began inspecting the system from top to bottom for damage. Incredibly, damage was minimal, and less than 12 hours after the earthquake hit,  BART service resumed. 

Loma Prieta and the weeks that followed are often referred to as “BART’s finest hour,” and with good reason. Staff quickly jumped to take on extra shifts so BART could run 24-hour service in the Transbay Tube, which started the day of the earthquake and ended December 3. The Bay Bridge did not reopen until November 18. 

Said Wilson: “Not only did they get BART back on track, they kept it there for more than a month while the Bay Bridge was out of service, carrying more than 10 million passengers to their jobs and homes around the clock.”  

III. The Earthquake Retrofit: “Like doing open heart surgery every night then bringing your patient back to life, over and over and over again” 

A diagram of the Transbay Tube that shows the outer steel shell, concrete liner, and steel plates that line the Tube’s interior. 

Loma Prieta had a magnitude of 6.9. What would happen to the Tube in the event of a once-in-a-thousand-years earthquake? 

This was the thought rumbling around the mind of Jim Dunn, BART’s then-Chief Engineer, when he instigated what became known as BART’s Earthquake Safety Program (ESP) in the early 2000s. The huge project was officially completed this year.  

“Dunn knew Loma Prieta was not the worst-case scenario. He wanted to know if a real big one would give us a problem,” said Tom Horton, who was BART Group Manager of ESP before retiring in 2017.  

With ESP, BART was not just preparing for a major earthquake, but one that might be centered closer to the core system, which runs directly adjacent to the San Andreas and Hayward faults. 

On November 2, 2004, voters in Contra Costa, San Francisco, and Alameda counties approved Measure AA, which allowed BART to issue general obligation bonds to fund up to $980 million of the $1.4 billion total cost of earthquake safety improvements. The team hit the ground running. The Tube retrofit began years later, in 2017.

“We started with a major evaluation of the system and how vulnerable it was to earthquakes,” Horton said. When Horton started, he had three employees. At the height of the project, more than 100 people were working on the program, 30 of whom were devoted to ESP full-time.  

“I have immense respect and appreciation for the personnel who worked on this,” said Zach Amare, BART Assistant Chief, Infrastructure Delivery. Nearly every department at BART had a role to play, including but not limited to the Operations Control Center, Traction Power, Track Maintenance, System Safety, Power/Mechanical Engineering and Maintenance, Operations Planning, Locomotive Operators, Operations Liaisons, Government and Community Relations, Communications, and many, many more.  

He credits the project’s success to four things: dedicated BART personnel; executive management who offered full support from the get-go; skilled contract personnel “who were up for the challenge to solve problems”; and a cohesive project management team. 

“Without these elements, this complicated, challenging project would not have been successful,” Amare said.  

Chuck Bernardo, BART Group Manager of Capital Projects, said he “didn’t realize how one-of-a-kind the Tube was until I started working on it.” 

“The challenge of the retrofit appealed to me,” he said. “You’re working at night and running the system the rest of the time. It was like doing open heart surgery every night then bringing your patient back to life, over and over and over again. You had to just dive right in. No one could tell you how to do it." 

A key piece of the Earthquake Safety Project was the seismic retrofit of the Transbay Tube, deemed BART’s most valuable asset.  

“It was the most difficult engineering project I have worked on with many unexpected challenges along the way, both in design and construction,” said Mark Salmon, who helped coordinate the retrofit design work for BART. "It really showed me the power of teamwork and perseverance. In many respects the Tube is unique in the world; there is no other similar example we could use to draw experience from and guide us. We had to solve the design and construction problems ourselves.” 

We want to be very clear: The Transbay Tube is structurally sound, but we are preparing for a rare and devastating earthquake, defined as something that happens once every thousand years. In an event this large, the Tube won’t fail, but it could crack and leak.  

“Underground structures in general are less of an issue because they don't see the same level of ground motion as the surface,” Horton said. “The wave is confined by the soil if it’s underground, but when it hits the surface, you get big movements.” As evidenced by the Tube travelers during Loma Prieta, the Tube may be one of the safer places to be during a big quake.  

BART worked with earthquake retrofit specialists using a combination of geotechnical and structural site investigations, computer simulations, and testing of materials and models to develop the retrofit design. 

Part of the modeling process including traveling to UC Davis, which has an old NASA centrifuge once used to train astronauts. Now, researchers use the centrifuge to simulate the pressures earthquakes could apply to buildings, and in our case, the pressures the Tube might face in a major shaker.  

Back in the 1960s, engineers designed the Tube to flex with earthquake ground motions to dissipate earthquake forces and absorb shock. A stiff Tube would become brittle and break in an earthquake, so the “Tube wiggle” is crucial. 

An image of one of three locomotives on the work train used during the Transbay Tube retrofit. 

At both ends of the Tube, there are giant seismic joints that allow the two ends of the Tube to move independently without damaging the structure. During the retrofit, the original joints were modified to increase their movement capacity. Now, the two sides can “separate” further without major damage to the Tube. 

On the Oakland side of the Tube, a steel liner was added to withstand the expected large forces this area could experience in an earthquake. The steel liner is both a structural fix and a means of preventing leakage. 

"There could be flooding in the Tube due to a 1,000-year earthquake, but it would be slow enough that people could get out safely,” Horton said. As it turns out, the Tube is predicted to sustain very little damage in a 500-year earthquake event. 

BART engineers addressed the potential for leakage after a severe earthquake with two elements. The first was to install the steel inner liner in the sections most likely to experience the largest movements. The second was an upgrade to the Tube’s pumping system to enable it to handle a higher volume of water and pump at a greater rate.  

The steel plate handling machine deserves some special attention as it was crucial to the project. 

The machine, transported into the Tube by a specialized work train (more on that below), placed steel plates fabricated to match the Tubes arched geometry. Once secured by concrete anchors, they were welded together. Grout was then used to fill the void between the existing concrete liner and new steel liner. A different method utilizing a plastic sheet membrane was employed on the Tube section supporting the trackway.

During the retrofit, every minute was precious. When Horton visited the steel liner operation during a work night, he said it ran “like a military exercise.”  

"As soon as the work train arrived, workers got off and went right to work, each person knowing exactly what their job was and going right at it.” 

Some workers put in 12-hour shifts, six days a week, to get the work done. This dedicated cohort includes Frank Greco, BART Structures Equipment Operator, who was one of the operators of the 800-foot, custom-built locomotive train. 

“Working those long hours was a sacrifice, for sure,” Greco said. “But I felt like I was a part of something bigger than myself. The Tube is such a big part of BART. It’s something thousands of people travel through on a weekly basis. Just to be a part of that, I felt very fortunate.”  

Greco said community sprung up around the painstaking work and the hundreds of hours they spent underwater. Often, the community was motivated by food. BART Operations Supervisor Harold Stuart would make regular Costco runs and bring giant boxes of snacks into the Tube for the workers. As Kenny Meyers said in the first half of this story, there’s no Starbucks down there.  

Greco said his first trip into the Tube made him "trip out.” 

“I loved it,” he said. “You’re in the middle of the water! It’s crazy! It’s unreal!”  

A photo of the completed retrofit inside the Tube.

Most of the time, Greco tried not to think about how deep underwater he was on those long graveyard shifts. It’s easy to psych yourself out down there, he said.  

Will Sowell, Jr., BART Structures Equipment Operator, also served as a work train operator, and initially, he didn’t want to do it.  

Sowell was used to big equipment, but not that big. The closest thing to the work train he’d operated was a power flat machine.  

He and other work train operators received specialized training to operate the work train, which can hold up to three 50-foot-long flatcars, seven 40-foot-long flatcars, two 41-foot-long concrete cars, one 55-foot-long steel plate handling device, and one 40-foot-long plate handling device flatcar. Say that five times fast.  

"The first time being on that machine was scary,” Greco said of the work train. “You know what you’re doing, but when you throw in the train with a lot of power and a braking system that’s intricate, it is a lot to handle.” 

Greco said he got used to it quickly. “And at the end of the day, not a lot of people can say they’ve operated a huge train with 17 cars. That’s something to put on your resume for sure.” 

Getting the job done in such a tight timeline took serious coordination and logistics.  

Bernardo said the Contractor would work backwards to build each night’s work schedule. They had to ask questions like: How much concrete do I need? How many steel plates have to go up? How many anchors and ties do we bring?

“The project team and contractor were constantly thinking about how to work under the constraints of the Tube, Bernardo said. “As we worked backwards, we’d realize, oh, we can’t do this task because this is in the way. Then, if we remove that first task, we have to find a place to put it back in.”  

Sowell witnessed these logistics in real-time. Every night before leaving the Oakland Yard, Sowell and his team would go through an extensive safety and supply check for the work train to make sure they had everything they needed, the cars were in the right order, all the equipment was secure, and the brakes, horns, bells, whistles, etc., were working properly. Then Operations Control Center would give the cue for the train to head out. Since work began at 9pm, passenger trains would share the tracks with the work train as it made its way underwater.  

"Every aspect of this project was unique because the Tube is unique,” Horton said. There's just nothing quite like our Tube.  

IV. BART’s Cathodic Protection System: “Without this system, the Tube would be gone by now” 

The Transbay Tube is an underwater steel structure, meaning it is prone to rust. To extend the life of the tube, BART employs a cathodic protection system, which prevents this from happening using electrochemistry.  

For BART's cathodic protection system, an external power source is used to push current from the anode sleds (an old, rusted anode is pictured in the first photo in the above slideshow) to the steel structure of the Tube, which acts as a cathode. The anode sleds sacrifice themselves (i.e. rust) to protect the cathode -- in our case the steel structure of the Tube.

There are a total of 30 400-pound anode sleds on the Tube, each containing16 anodes apiece. A huge wire connects the anodes to a power box contained within the Tube, which pumps 200 amps of current -- that's equivalent to the energy needed to power an entire modern home! 

“Without this, the Tube would be rusted by now and require billions in replacement costs,” said Senior Manager of Engineering Programs Maansii Chirag Sheth, who oversees the cathodic protection system. And don’t worry about the marine life, she stressed. “If you’re a little fishy and you touch the Tube, you won’t feel the current. It’s not an electric current that’ll shock you.” 

Maansii is one of just a handful of certified cathodic protection engineers in the U.S. The work is extremely specialized, and corrosion engineers must take a difficult certification test. Maansii passed the test in 2013. She was just the 39th person in California to receive the specialized certification. 

Large clamshell dredging bucket being lowered into the bay as part of soil handling operations. 

Every few years, the rusted anodes must be replaced, and only a handful of contractors in the U.S. are equipped for this sort of specialized, largescale work, Maansii said.  

Replacing a 400-pound anode attached to a Tube more than 100 feet deep in zero-visibility waters is a tall task, as you can imagine. Best-case scenario, the replacement of a single anode takes about a half a month. With shifting currents and wind, the anodes can move slightly, and down there, you can’t see a thing. The work is faster now that GPS systems have improved, which make it easier to locate the anode in the water. 

“It’s a complex operation with a large amount of variables at play. You have to account for weather and seasons, contracting and securing a barge, hiring trained divers, leveraging specialized equipment, and obtaining permissions from the Coast Guard, and so on," Maansi said.

Diver stepping off barge into the Bay as part of cable installation operations near the Transbay Tube.

You also can’t work when it’s stormy or during certain months, including the entirety of Dungeness crab season. One must manage tide cycles, passing vessels, soil handling restrictions – the list goes on.  

Once all that’s taken care of, it’s time to get down to work. First, a large clamshell bucket on the barge digs out a bunch of mud to expose the anode. Deep-sea divers specially trained for industrial projects pinpoint the exact location of the anode, which is detached then lifted from the water onto the barge. Then, the new anode is lowered down and attached to the cable system. After testing, the anode is energized, and its sacrificial work begins.  

Let us all take a moment to thank the sacrificial anodes for their service. Without them, no Tube would be there and no connectivity in the Bay.  

V. The Transbay Tube’s Next Chapter: “It could be under the Bay forever” 

Though this story is coming to an end, the story of the Tube is far from over. The Tube is fifty, true, but we can’t say it’s hit middle age just yet. 

Image

Thanks to the Earthquake Safety Program, those sacrificial anodes, and the many BART staff who work to keep it maintained, the Tube’s got quite a life ahead of it. 

What might the future hold? Currently, BART is working on a project that will allow us to operate up to 30 ten-car trains per hour in each direction through the Tube, increasing capacity and shortening wait times at stations. Currently, a maximum of 24 trains per hour can travel through the Tube in each direction.  

The program includes four elements: the purchase of additional railcars, a new railcar storage yard at the Hayward Maintenance Complex, a new communications-based train control system that will allow shorter waits between trains, and five additional traction power substations to provide the additional power needed for more frequent service.  

It’s a bright future for a structure with a history long enough to fill the pages of a whole book. We’ll save that project for another day.  

“Nobody has a Tube like ours,” said Horton in conclusion. “It could be under the Bay forever. That gives you something to think about.”  

September 6 update:

The closure has been extended to Sunday, September 15 due to unforeseen complications. We thank you for your patience.

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BART’s escalator contractor will close the Embarcadero Station entrance located at Davis and Market (stairway and escalator) this Friday, August 30 to Sunday, September 8.  This full entrance closure is necessary to complete installation of panels at the entrance. 

Please note there will be two entrance closures at the Embarcadero Station during this 10-day period.  A map below shows the open entrances and elevator location.  Wayfinding signs will be installed on the barricades inside the station and on the street level to detour pedestrian traffic from this entrance. 

BART crews are busy working on the single largest contract for escalator replacement in BART history.  The Market Street Escalators Renovation Project team is working to install and replace 41 escalators at Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell, and Civic Center stations.  Of the escalators to be replaced, 23 are street to concourse level and 18 connect concourse with station platforms.  Project completion is expected to be in 2026. You can view the four downtown station maps for escalator and canopy progress at: https://www.bart.gov/about/planning/sf-escalators

Today, Dec. 12, at El Cerrito del Norte Station, BART, Bay Area transit agencies, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) unveiled new test transit maps and signs designed to help make transit journeys easier to understand for both existing and new riders by delivering information that is clear, predictable, and familiar across service areas and county lines. A new comprehensive transit map, which will enable riders to discover key destinations they can reach on the Bay Area's extensive rail, bus, and ferry network, also was released. 

Today’s event kicked off the start of an evaluation period for the Regional Mapping & Wayfinding project, in which BART,  MTC, and transit partners invite Bay Area residents and visitors to share their thoughts about the test signs and maps now installed at El Cerrito del Norte Station. Several “test” prototype signs and other communication materials also will be installed at the Santa Rosa Transit Mall/Downtown Santa Rosa SMART station later this month. Members of the public, including those who are unable to visit one of the test locations in El Cerrito or Santa Rosa, are invited to take this online survey to share their feedback and ideas.

“Transit in the Bay Area and elsewhere is still suffering the effects of the pandemic,” said Sue Noack, vice chair of MTC’s Regional Network Management Committee and Pleasant Hill City Councilmember. “But these maps and signs are tangible examples of the work MTC and the transit agencies are doing together to make the Bay Area’s system simpler, easier to use, and more affordable.”

Said BART General Manager Bob Powers: "This is not just a BART project, but a collaborative effort across regional transit agencies to experiment and innovate together. This project will move away from the disjointed look of the region's current transit signage and maps and make it easier for riders to know how to get from point A to point B, especially those who are new to riding Bay Area transit. I am thrilled that all of our agencies and the MTC have worked together to make this important project happen." 

Transit riders will be able to engage with the test materials during their journeys and share their ideas about how to make new signs and maps work better for them. This public feedback will help inform the next stage of the project in which the new maps and wayfinding materials are expected to be installed at seven additional locations across the Bay Area in 2025 and 2026.

The new maps and signs are part of the larger Regional Mapping and Wayfinding initiative aimed at making it easier to ride transit in the Bay Area. Whether a rider is traveling by bus, rail, ferry, or a combination, the signs, maps, screens and other communication systems will be consistent and easy to identify across all nine Bay Area counties.

The Regional Mapping and Wayfinding Project — led by MTC in partnership with BART and over two dozen Bay Area transit agencies as well as transit riders and Bay Area cities and counties — is the result of a first-of-its-kind effort to redesign and harmonize maps and signage across all nine Bay Area counties to help people navigate transit more easily. This project is just one piece of a broader effort outlined in the Bay Area Transit Transformation Action Plan, which is focused on making Bay Area transit easier and more convenient for riders of all ages and abilities to use.

The Regional Network Management Council includes top executives from BART, MTC, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, AC Transit, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), Caltrain, SamTrans and the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, as well as three general managers representing all other transit agencies serving Bay Area communities, including BART General Manager Bob Powers. 

MTC is the regional transportation planning, financing and coordinating agency for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area.

BART’s safety initiative to remove potentially hazardous trees in advance of severe winter storms will next focus on San Francisco and Daly City. To provide crews with enough room to safely do the work, free buses will replace trains between Glen Park and Daly City stations the first weekend in December, Saturday December 2, and Sunday December 3. Riders in the area should anticipate delays of up to 30 minutes. If the weather should interfere with the work on December 2-3, then the tree removal will be rescheduled for the following weekend, December 9-10. 

Riders in the area on the work weekend will have to get off their train at Glen Park or Daly City and then board a free bus to get to the next station in their direction of travel to continue their trip. Some buses will run directly between Glen Park and Daly City while others will stop at Glen Park, Balboa Park, and Daly City. 

Service from the East Bay to Downtown San Francisco

The Yellow and Blue lines will serve the downtown San Francisco stations. The Blue line will turn back at the 24th Street/Mission and the Yellow line will turn back at Glen Park. Blue Line riders traveling beyond 24th Street/Mission will need to walk across the platform and take the Yellow line train to the bus bridge at Glen Park.

Green line service will be cancelled on both days of the track shutdown. 

To provide some increased transbay frequency, BART will run some Red line Richmond to Montgomery and Montgomery to Richmond trains between 11:00am and 6pm. 

Service between Daly City and SFO/Millbrae and Millbrae/SFO to Daly City

BART will run only one line between Daly City and SFO/Millbrae and Millbrae/SFO to Daly City with service every 20 minutes. Each train will make all stops including SFO and Millbrae. These trains departure times will not match our normal timetable, but will run every 20 minutes. Riders traveling beyond Daly City will need to board the bus bridge.

Late Night Cancelled Train

The last northbound train of the night normally scheduled to leave Millbrae at 11:52pm and SFO at 12:00am will be cancelled both evenings of the track shutdown. Riders instead should plan to catch the 11:40pm departure from Millbrae that leaves SFO at 11:48pm.

BART will make the most of the weekend when this segment of the system will be closed by also working on trackway improvements. You can learn more about BART’s safety initiative to remove potentially dangerous trees on the project page.

You can keep up with the latest updates for trackway repair projects that impact service by going to our Alerts and Advisories page. BART’s Trip Planner has been improved to show the full customer journey including bus bridges. You can also check Real Time Departures for your station of choice.

Update 10:00am, September 13:

The final Sunday of scheduled work for this project between Balboa Park and Daly City has been cancelled. BART will now run its normal service on Sunday, September 24 instead of reducing service to one track.

On three non-consecutive Sundays in August and September BART will be cutting back and removing trees that could pose a hazard to the trackway between Balboa Park and Daly City stations. To ensure safe conditions for workers, service will be reduced from two to one track on the following Sundays:

*August 27
*September 10
*September 24

Riders in the area on those workdays should anticipate delays of 10-15 minutes. Also, all Green Line trains will be cancelled.

On those three dates BART will also perform tree removal work in southern Alameda County. That work will happen on both Saturdays and Sundays on those three weekends and will require free buses to replace train service between Union City and Fremont stations. You can learn more about the work in Alameda County here. You can also get more details about BART’s systemwide safety initiative to remove potentially hazardous trees at the project page.

Work is scheduled to begin the week of April 29, 2024, on the installation of new segments of Class IV bicycle lanes at Ashby Station. Once completed, the new bicycle facility will provide a connection between Adeline Street and Martin Luther King Jr Way through the BART parking lot, formalizing bicycle circulation in and out of the Adeline Street driveway. Curb ramps on Adeline Street at the driveway will also be upgraded. 

Construction impacts will include the following:

• The Adeline Street exit driveway will be temporarily closed.
• The 13 parking spaces at the south end of the parking lot will be blocked. 
• Parking spaces for GetAround will be temporarily relocated.
• Pedestrians traveling north-south on the west side of Adeline will be routed around the work area with barriers, ADA-compliant ramps, and temporary wayfinding signage.
• When the project is completed, the south driveway on Martin Luther King Jr Way will be converted to inbound vehicle movements only.

Most work will be carried out between 7 am and 5 pm on weekdays. The work is expected to last 3-4 months.

In addition to BART’s project, City of Berkeley is currently designing additional bicycle improvements between the BART driveway and Woolsey to the east and between the BART driveway and Prince Street to the west.

Thank you for your patience as we complete this important work.

Installation of Next Generation Fare Gates is scheduled to begin December 13 at Dublin/Pleasanton Station. The installation process is expected to take approximately two weeks to complete. 

During construction, there will be a barrier around the existing station gate array.  Riders will use two temporary accessible gates to enter and exit.  The temporary gates are located at each end of the station entrance. The gate to exit the station will be next to the Station Agent Booth and the gate to enter the station will be on the far left at the end of the existing array against the wall. There will be signage and additional staff to help direct riders through the temporary gates. Additionally, a carpet will be installed immediately before the entrance to each temporary gate, to make them easier to locate for riders with visual impairments. 

The work will not impact train service, but riders may experience a few minutes wait to pass through the temporary gates during peak travel hours. 

This latest work follows the successful installation of new fare gates at 11 BART stations across the system. All BART stations will have new gates by the end of 2025. You can learn more about BART’s Next Generation Fare Gates at our project page. Riders can provide feedback about the new gates at bart.gov/comments.

Installation of Next Generation Fare Gates is scheduled to begin December 13 at Hayward Station. The installation process is expected to take approximately two weeks to complete.

During construction, there will be a barrier around the existing station gate array.  Riders will use two temporary accessible gates to enter and exit Hayward Station.  Both gates are located next to the Station Agent Booth. When facing the booth from the non-paid area of the station, the fare gate to your right is used to enter the station and the fare gate to your left is used to exit. Additionally, a carpet will be installed immediately before the entrance to each temporary gate to make the gates easier to locate for riders with visual impairments. 

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 11 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 at the project page. Riders can provide feedback about the new gates at bart.gov/comments.

Installation of Next Generation Fare Gates is scheduled to begin the week of September 3rd at Richmond Station. The installation process is expected to take approximately two weeks to complete. This work comes after the successful installation of Next Generation Fare Gates at Civic Center, Fruitvale, and West Oakland stations. 

During construction, there will be a barrier around the existing station gate array.  Riders will use two temporary accessible gates to enter and exit Richmond Station.  Both gates are located next to the Station Agent Booth. When facing the booth from the non-paid area of the station, the fare gate to your right is used to enter the station and the fare gate to your left is used to exit. Additionally, carpet will be installed immediately before the entrance to each fare gate, to make these two gates easier to locate for riders with visual impairments. The removal of the old gates and installation of Next Generation Fare Gates will not impact train service.  

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.