BART

Ground was broken Thursday on the first building in the Transit-Oriented Development at Lake Merritt station. This first project will include 97 permanently affordable homes, public spaces, and transit upgrades around Chinatown. BART partnered with the East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation and Strada Investment Group on the Transit-Oriented Development. EBALDC and community partners led public engagement on the project design. BART has also partnered with EBALDC to secure over $34 million in transportation funding for access enhancements in the neighborhood as well as funding for BART system improvements.

\ BART × YiFang Taiwan Fruit Tea 🧋 / Starting Wednesday October 16, 2024, while supplies last, pick up a cupsleeve featuring our anime mascots at these YiFang locations near BART: 📍 SF Chinatown 📍 Colma 📍 UC Berkeley 📍 Downtown Walnut Creek The collaboration and cup sleeve giveaway will launch on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, at four Yifang locations in the Bay Area all located within one mile of a BART station. The collaboration will last through the month of October or while supplies last. The exclusive cup sleeves feature four of BART’s Anime Mascots­— Baylee and her goat fan, Nimbus, Mira, and Jasmine enjoying fruit tea drinks, the BART logo, as well as Yifang’s logo. Yifang locations have paired special menu combinations with BART's Anime Mascots by matching their color palettes or character personalities. The four locations include: • University of California, Berkeley Yifang: 2516 Bancroft Way, Berkeley (near Downtown Berkeley BART Station) • Colma Yifang: 4923 Junipero Serra Blvd, Colma (near Colma BART Station) • San Francisco Chinatown Yifang: 870 Washington Street, San Francisco (near Montgomery BART Station) • Walnut Creek: 1349 Locust St, Walnut Creek (Near Walnut Creek BART Station) Planned pop-up events: Inspired by fan events celebrating anime, gaming, and K-pop, BART is planning pop-up events at two Yifang locations featuring the BART Anime standees and special giveaways. For these planned events, anyone who comes in a full-body BART themed costume or BART Anime Mascot cosplay will receive a BART Anime sticker sheet with their cup sleeve, while supplies last. • Wednesday, October 16th at the Berkeley Yifang location 3pm-6pm. • Wednesday, October 30th at the Colma Yifang location 5pm-7pm. “As BART works to strengthen relationships with youth and young adults to increase ridership, this collaboration is meant to surprise and delight potential riders and offer an immersive consumer experience that appeals to anime fans,” said BART’s Chief Communications Officer Alicia Trost who launched BART’s Anime Mascot Program to promote public transportation use, especially among youth riders, a growing and reliable ridership demographic. “This cross-promotional marketing opportunity is a way to celebrate our classic Taiwanese flavored drinks as well as BART’s anime mascots that were inspired not just by Bay Area culture but also transit systems in Taiwan which use anime mascots to connect with their communities,” said Alexus Lopez, Marketing Manager for Yifang NorCal. Yifang offers gourmet Taiwanese tea drinks at multiple locations across the Bay Area. Their most sought-out drink, Yifang Fruit Tea, uses home-made organic cane sugar, seasonal fresh fruits, and natural ingredients.

Our new Next Generation Fare Gates are now open at 16th Street Mission Station in San Francisco! This comes after the new gates were installed at 24th Street Mission, Antioch, Civic Center, Fruitvale, Oakland International Airport, Richmond, and West Oakland stations. Meanwhile, workers are continuing to install new arrays at San Francisco International Airport Station. The station has a total of 4 sets of fare gates, 2 on the upper level and 2 on the lower level. Workers will replace one set on each level of the station simultaneously. Funding for the new gates comes from local, state, and federal sources. Thanks to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority for providing $12.5 million to cover 50% of the 8 San Francisco County stations! 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 (including a list of what stations are next in line to get the new gates) here: https://lnkd.in/gGJDUg8V

A newly rebuilt escalator opened to the public this afternoon at Embarcadero Station, just in time for the busy Fleet Week activities. The new escalator connects the concourse in the middle of the station to Market Street between Davis and California Streets. It’s the first street-to-concourse escalator at Embarcadero to be completely rebuilt, joining two platform level escalators at the station that were finished earlier. Work continues on another platform escalator at Embarcadero as well as platform units at each of the other three downtown San Francisco stations. A new platform escalator at Montgomery Street Station is expected to open in the coming weeks. The Market Street Escalators Renovation Project is installing new 41 new escalators at downtown San Francisco stations in conjunction with the Market Street Canopy Project.

Do you feel the need ... the need for transit to Fleet Week?! BART will be running longer trains Saturday, Oct. 12, and Sunday, Oct. 13. Here's how to reach the various air show viewing areas with BART + Muni ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/g-vHHyJc

This Hispanic Heritage Month BART is celebrating employees with Hispanic and Latino heritage who enrich our organization and the community at large. Meet Aileen Hernandez, BART's Interim Manager for Grants & Funding Advocacy Division, Funding Strategy Department. She has spent her career — in Sacramento, New York, and Bay Area— running complex programs to ensure the ladder of opportunity extends to those who need it most. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gkuAVThJ

The latest numbers from the BART Police Department show through the end of August overall crime in the system is down 15% compared with the same period in 2023. The trend includes a 10% drop in violent crime. The decline in the crime rate comes as BART has been experiencing an increase in ridership. All of BART’s top 10 post-pandemic ridership days were in September, driven by special events including the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco and the final Oakland A’s homestand. “The drop in criminal activity on BART is happening as we have been going all out to implement our Safe and Clean Plan,” said BART General Manager Bob Powers. “Our riders have been loud and clear that they want us to step our game up when it comes to their safety and the cleanliness of our system. We have more work to do on behalf of our riders, but these numbers indicate our commitment to maximizing our visible safety presence is paying off.” BART’s Safe and Clean Plan is a commitment to riders to maximize resources to boost their safety and provide clean service. BART’s stepped up safety efforts include sworn officers, non-sworn Crisis Intervention Specialists and Transit Ambassadors, as well as the implementation of Next Generation Fare Gates, which have now been installed successfully at seven stations. All 50 of BART’s stations will have Next Generation Fare Gates by the end of 2025. A focal point of the plan has been a major boost in BART PD’s visible safety presence on trains and in stations supported by devoting additional resources to hire and retain more officers. “Since I became BART Police Chief one year ago, it has been my top priority to maximize the number of officers walking trains and patrolling our stations,” said BART Police Chief Kevin Franklin. “Our officers are more visible than ever. Their efforts are containing relatively small concerns before they grow into big problems that harm service.” BART PD patrols a system that spans five counties and includes 50 stations with 131 route miles of track. Keep up with all BART’s safety trends: https://lnkd.in/gaKuuUJb

Transit coordination is happening in the Bay Area: On Thursday the BART Board will be asked to approve free and discounted transfers across agencies. This amazing incentive to take transit and save money will become available with the launch of the Next Generation of Bay Area Clipper next year. Other transit coordination efforts underway: - Collaborating on schedules to improve transfers and aligning schedule changes - Expanding the Clipper START discount for limited income riders - Launching the regional Clipper BayPass BART is also doing its part to increase ridership: - Deploying new fare gates on schedule - Increasing police presence and diverting calls to crisis team when appropriate - Marketing initiatives to drive non-peak and weekend ridership - New trains and clean service View the full presentation: https://t.co/YpCm6cs8Jq

The vibes, the memes, the trains!!! Cal fans took over BART just after 4am Saturday to support University of California, Berkeley hosting ESPN College GameDay for the first time. The #Calgorithm asked for these special early weekend service and we were happy to deliver trains - and memes of our own! There were 8,600 exits at Downtown Berkeley station, compared to about 4,300 the previous Saturday. See you at Memorial Stadium October 17 for Homecoming against North Carolina State. Thanks for riding BART.

A Next Generation Fare Gates update: • Antioch station got new fare gates this week! They are up and running. • 16th Street Mission station is next. Work has begun and will take about two weeks. • SFO station comes after that. Work begins next Friday, October 11. During construction at 16th Street Mission Station, there will be a barrier around the existing station gate array. Riders will use two temporary accessible gates to enter and exit the station. Both gates are located next to the Station Agent Booth, one on each side. SFO Station has a total of four sets of fare gates, two on the upper level and two on the lower level. Workers will replace one set on each level of the station simultaneously. While this work is being done, a set of the old gates will remain open for riders on each level. This work comes after the successful installation of Next Generation Fare Gates at 24th Street Mission, Civic Center, Fruitvale, Oakland International Airport, Richmond, and West Oakland stations. Funding for the new gates comes from local, state, and federal sources. We thank the San Francisco County Transportation Authority for providing $12.5 million to cover 50% of the 8 San Francisco County stations. 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 here. https://lnkd.in/d_W92RVD