BART's new faregates installed at all downtown San Francisco stations
BART officials hit a milestone Wednesday with the installation of its new faregates.
The project is the centerpiece of the agency's effort to lure back riders concerned about crime and general disorder in the system, and they may already be making a difference.
For anyone trying to piggyback through, that free ride is going to get tougher.
The milestone is that the new gates have been installed at every station in downtown San Francisco. Have they made the system impenetrable? No. Are they helping to improve things? BART says yes, absolutely.
"I just kind of started taking BART more often several months ago," said rider Christina Allen. "And I haven't had a problem with crime or with problems."
After some time apart, Allen recently rekindled her relationship with Bay Area Rapid Transit. So far, she has few complaints.
"You know, if you have not ridden BART as much as you used to, I get it. The last couple years have been challenging," said San Francisco Supervisor Danny Sauter. "But come back and I think, quickly, you will see the difference."
BART and its boosters say the agency is riding on some momentum. A year and a half after rider surveys found broad frustrations about conditions within the system, BART says feedback is improving, and so are the raw numbers.
"The crime rate for 2024 was down 17% compared with the previous year," said Chief Kevin Franklin. "Violent crime dropped 11% and the total number of property crimes declined by more than 500 events."
"You know there's two pieces in my mind on BART's fiscal cliff," explained BART General Manager Bob Powers. "One is the discussions with Sacramento and a regional measure. But the other one is these new faregates, and lighting, and presence in the system to drive our ridership up."
Powers says changing minds is critical to survival, and it's taking a little bit of everything to improve ridership. As for the new gates, the agency is aware of one vulnerability.
"You know, they work pretty well," Allen said of the new gates. "But I have had people try to kind of slip in behind me, and definitely sneak out behind me. People who haven't paid."
"So I know exactly what you're talking about," Powers responded. "The piggybacking. I go through the gate right now and It's one, one-thousand two, and you can slide in behind me. We're going to tune that down, right? We know that. What you don't want to do when you do something is get one or two gates in and start messing with them, and taking your mind off the other installations. So now that we have a critical mass, we're going to fine-tune them, so when I go through, it's one one-thousand, bam! That gate is closing."
The next stop for the gate installation is Berkeley and then Orinda. They should be up across the entire system by the end of the year.
