Ever heard of "power sagging"? Neither have I, but the Coco Times says that BART is at the limit of its electrical system and may experience problems with further system expansion. There's some disagreement over how to correct the problem.

Phew. That, my friends, is what they call "crush load." Adding insult to injury, a couple of hundred passengers manage to extricate themselves from their packed cars, only to immediately get stuck in a long queue to exit through the balky Ashby faregates.

PB sends this report from the field:

Saturday (11/23): Big game day at UCB and thousands come to see it. Signs everywhere encourage people to take mass transit (see the BART shuttle banner at Embarcadero).

Usually BART plans pretty well for these, but not today. Five car trains running to Berkeley in the late morning - absolutely packed. Despite the fact the big game happens every year, I could almost forgive this. But post-game the same situation occurred. You couldn't even get near the train if you wanted to. I gave up and decided to wait a couple hours, but it didn't help.

12th Street Oakland, who should board my car but the one and only Frank Chu! Wow!

Richmond trains pulls out of Embarcadero and... stops. And creeps. And stops. And creeps. Etc. Etc. "Sticky brake," says train operator on the PA. Creep. Stop. Etc. Etc. Train operator says he's going to reboot the train to try to unstick the brake and that the lights will go out. As promised, the lights go out. It is dark. It is quiet. Time passes. Nervous titters are heard. A passenger pulls a small flashlight out of her purse and waves it around, provoking chuckles. Eventually the lights come back on, but the brake is still stuck. Train operator says that an onboard mechanic (does every train have one of those?) will try to fix it. Time passes. More time passes. Etc. Etc. We move again, much more smoothly and quickly. "Thanks Donald," says the train operator. Yes indeed.

Later, Donald walks through my car. Donald wears large wire frame eyeglasses, tattered blue Dockers, and has blond hair tied back in a pony tail. Donald looks more like a high school Social Studies teacher than a train mechanic, but he seems to know his stuff.

Well, it's been over a week since I sent an email to BART Customer Service to ask about installation of new faregates at Ashby. There's been no response. I am concluding that either (1) BART Customer Service does not read email sent by its customers, or (2) BART reads the email but has such disdain for its customers that it feels no need to respond in any way.

Must be Thanksgiving week; plenty of parking available at Ashby this morning.

All the faregates are locked open. But I run my ticket through anyway.

Train arrives Ashby on time. After Macarthur, we park. And sit. No announcement of any kind from train operator. We wait. The hum of the ventilation system keeps us placid. Time passes. Eight minutes. We lurch into motion, onward to 12th Street.

Message sign says: Pittsburg train in 1 minute... Richmond train in 19 minutes.

Um. What about the Richmond train in 4 minutes? Say, Mister PA operator, a little information would be helpful here. No such luck. I hop on the Pittsburg train; I'll wait in Oakland. Train operator says that the train immediately behind us is "now" also going to Pittsburg. Whatever.

Four trains backed up at West Oakland. We creep. We stop. We creep. Etc.

Macarthur. Sign says Richmond train in 2 minutes. This is good. It's the 5 car train from Fremont. That all worked out okay, no thanks to BART.

Fare gate out of service out Ashby; mechanic fiddling deep in innards.

Fare gate out of service at Embarcadero; no sign of a rescue attempt.

Stop and go traffic through downtown Oakland. Stop and go traffic in tube approaching SF.

Late night SF: Pittsburg train arrives 14 minutes late. Or is it 6 minutes early? Impossible to tell, as there are no announcements. This is a LWB pet peeve: at this hour, BART is running all of 6 trains per hour eastwards from the city, and for some reason can't manage to keep even that small number of trains operating on time. I don't ride often at this hour, but enounter schedule problems way too regularly.

Another highly useless 60 cent ticket. Get a lot of these, as the largest available ticket ($48) lasts less than 2 weeks. Got a whole drawer full, as a matter of fact. Time to cash them in. Have to go to one of the designated stations, during designated hours. Find the guy. Give him my stack. He looks at me distainfully, then begins adding up the value by hand on a little 10-key adding machine. Swipes ticket to read value when print is illegible. Voila. A new $20 ticket. What a system.

SF Chron reports that the opening of the BART SFO extension is going to be further delayed. As I recall, it was originally supposed to be opened in 2001. Yeah, I know, these big projects always run over timeline, but it's still disappointing.

All three gates functioning at Ashby, but only one set for entry (the dominant flow in the morning). I wonder, does the attendant switch a gate back and forth with the flow of passengers? In any case, there's just a crying need for more faregates at Ashby. Still no response from BART to my email inquiry on this topic.

New faregates being installed at Powell! It's kind of a mess over there; construction all over and huge crowds contending with few operating gates -- it would have been nice if BART could have done the construction at night -- but at least the new gates are here.

Platform escalator is out of service and cordoned off.

Train is on time.

Hey, BART has posted their most recent Quarterly Performance Report, saying that they're doing pretty well. I'd say that my own experience (as reported here) is quite a bit more mixed.

Oh, by the way... another good ride on BART this evening. Seemed to be some delays on Pittsburg, but Richmond was fine. Crazy crowded, that is, but on-time. Two exit gates in operation at Ashby, one quickly jams up and the long, slow slog to exit through one gate begins.

Shoot, no sense just wishing and wondering when the new faregates will come to Ashby... I'll just send an email to BART Customer Service and ask! I mean, that's what they're there for, right?

TO: BART Customer Service
FROM: LWB
RE: Ashby faregate replacement
DATE: Monday, November 18 2002
Hi, I'd like to know when Ashby station is scheduled to get the new faregates installed. And will the number of faregates be increased (currently only 3) in order to eliminate the long delay in exiting the station?
Thanks,
LWB

Think I'll get a response?

Another trouble-free trip.

One faregate out of service at Embarcadero. With the little orange sticker covering the ticket intake slot. No repair effort is apparent.

Trouble-free ride home. It's a good day for BART. Best since starting this blog.

Pretty smooth this morning. Only problem is some stop-and-go traffic after Macarthur, but at least the train operator keeps us updated over the PA system.

Some kind of construction in progress at Embarcadero faregates. Sure hope it's preparations for the new gates.

Richmond train arrives early at Embarcadero. Richmond train departs early. So early that I am just stepping off of the escalator. Wow. Never saw that before. Now I've got a 15 minute wait for the next train, thanks to the new schedules. Catch the next Pittsburg train. Will wait at Macarthur, maybe catch the Fremont-Richmond train.

Macarthur. Fremont-Richmond train is late. Jam packed with people when it arrives. SF-Richmond train should be just 3 minutes behind this one, but the signs say nothing about it, so I force my way on.

Holy crap, that was one jam packed train.

SF Chron says BART starts signing up reserved-parking buyers.

Come Dec. 2, BART will offer guaranteed reserved parking to commuters willing to pay a $63 monthly fee -- as the BART board of directors decided in July. Up to a quarter of the spaces at each of the 29 stations that offer parking will be set aside for reserved parking subscribers. The rest will remain free to those who arrive early enough to snag them.

This will probably upset a lot of people, but it makes sense in a way.

10 minute delay from 12th St to Richmond, according to the radio. Either I just missed it, or I didn't notice. Now that you mention it, though, that train was pretty darned crowded.

12th St. Oakland: New faregates! Whoo hoo!!

Wait a minute........ why won't this brand new faregate accept my ticket? Sigh. The elation is short lived.

Well, still. These new gates are going to be a huge improvement. Can't wait for them to get fully installed.

"There is another Pittsburg train 3 minutes behind this one," says the PA. Huh. That doesn't sound good. Dunno what's going on, but I'll jump on this Pittsburg train and do my waiting at Macarthur.

Yep, something screwy. Waiting at Macarthur, no sign of the SF-Richmond train. I wait. I catch the Fremont-Richmond train. Electronic message signs still say nothing about the SF-Richmond train. Good thing I didn't wait in SF.

Jeez, that parking lot is full! Is the recession over already?

Nice ride to SF this morning. Have to stand the whole way, but that's one of the few things that I don't complain about. Passengers arriving at Ashby, they're greeted with zero operating exit gates and no apparent activity to change that situation. Blah blah blah faregates blah blah blah.

Well, I'm sure glad I wasn't trying to get to Dublin/Pleasanton. My ride on the Richmond line was pretty much unaffected. And thanks to all the folks who didn't have to work on Veterans Day, I even got a seat! Arriving at Ashby, two exit gates are in service. At least momentarily. Once actually used, one jams. Station agent appears on the scene and starts fussing. Must not have been an easy fix, because several minutes later there's still a huge queue of passengers slowly filing out one exit gate.

It's only been a couple of weeks, and I'm already tired of reporting on fare gate problems. Clearly the least reliable element of the BART system. I'm eagerly awaiting the new gates; Life With BART postings will slow down considerably.

Dunno if this is going to hose my trip home, but the KQED traffic report says that BART is experiencing 20 minute delays to Dublin/Pleasanton and has no direct service between Fremont and Richmond. Switching problems all afternoon.

One out of service fare gate at Ashby. These fare gates are even more of a problem that I had realized. Should be much better when the new gates get installed.

Okay, just browsed around the BART Home Page to see if they say when gates will be replaced at each station. No information. Just this overview.

Ray asks, why not also mention the good parts about riding BART? An excellent question, and one that I had intended to address at the start.

For the most part, BART is fast, convenient, reliable, comfortable, and reasonably priced. When going to SF, I'd never consider driving when I have the option of riding BART. All this is due to those folks who, around 40 years ago, agreed to invest billions and billions of dollars to construct the world's most advanced local rail system. No expense was spared, giving BART all-new exclusive rails, computer controlled 80 mph trains, underground stations, and an independent elected Board of Directors. In spite of this solid foundation, the current state of BART is embarrassing, resulting from years of neglect by BART's political and executive leadership. At least that's my feeling while riding BART. I thought that perhaps I'd put that perception to the test by keeping a log of my BART riding experiences. Maybe I'll find that things aren't as bad as I thought. Maybe.

That said, I take Ray's question seriously. And I've actually been planning to make note of the positive experiences that stand out -- e.g., a particularly helpful BART employee, new faregates, etc. -- as well. There just haven't been any yet.

Platform escalator at Ashby out of service and cordoned off.

Q: What do you call an out of service escalator?
A: Stairs.

Q: What does BART call an out of service escalator?
A: Cordoned-off no-access zone.

Oakland Tribune says that BART issues false warning of chemical spill to riders.

"BART's gremlins are back," says the Trib. I guess I missed the part where they were gone.

Zero entry gates in operation at Ashby. 30 or 40 people queued up, while BART Station Agent fumbles with gates. Gets one working. It breaks. Gets two working. We're in.

SF train is late.

We play stop-and-go in the tube approaching Embarcadero.

Two fare gates out of service at Embarcadero; long queue of passengers filtering out through single operating gate.

Another beautiful day in BART's neighborhood.

I now realize that I should have called this blog "Travels With BART." Shoot. Oh well, live and learn.

SF Chronicle says BART searches for answers after retrofit defeat. I dunno; doesn't seem so mysterious to me. I mean, they only lost by a whisper; not like it was a crushing rejection. If BART had run a real campaign, or put forward a proposal that promised to protect and improve BART, it probably would have passed easily.

Absurdly, that same Ashby faregate remains out of service, with its panels removed and a mechanic (still, 24 hours later) poking and prodding around. You might think that BART would keep on hand a few sets of renovated faregate mechanicals that could be swapped in at times like this. You might think that. But you would be wrong.

Well, THAT sucked. Crammed so tightly into the train, I'm certain to have head to toe bruises tomorrow.

44 minutes for a 21 minute trip.

That out-of-service Ashby faregate that had its hood up this morning? Still got its hood up. One functioning exit gate.

***delays*** there is a medical emergency at the montgomery station so trains are being single-tracked through the montgomery street station. delays of 15 minutes from montgomery to daly city/colma and least 7 minutes from 24th street to all east bay locations. (updated at 4:50 pm)

Huh. I don't usually bother to check BART status before leaving work (on account of only the most catastrophic events are even reported, and usually not updated frequently enough to be useful). May have saved myself some waiting around on the platform. Thanks, KPIX Traffic! (Special prize to anyone who can explain why BART doesn't have this information on their own web page.)

Life With BART is ready to call the BART bond election: it failed. But just barely, with 64% support, very strong support considering the lousy non-campaign that BART ran. No yard signs, no mailers, no door hangers, no phone calls. No sign of the BART Board of Directors -- no community forums (forae?), no appearances at BART stations. Gotta wonder how committed to the measure they really were.

Montgomery: two fare gates out of service.

On train: Crazy man, twitching wildly in seat.

Civic Center: Awaiting train. Arrival sign shows Richmond Train. No train arrives. Sign continues to show Richmond. Train continues to not arrive. Sign goes black. I feel like I'm waiting for Godot.

Fare gate out of commission at Ashby. Looks serious -- hood up, mechanic up to elbows in innards.

Well, looks like the BART seismic retrofit bond is going down. Hard to say for sure; right now it's winning big in SF with all votes in, sucking wind in Contra Costa County with 59% in, and right on the fence in Alameda County with 60% in. Which implies overall 63% support; not quite good enough.

Won't know for sure until tomorrow.

Ah, back to normal. Embarcadero platform is packed with people, PA operator is saying something about stuck train doors, and a Richmond train is sitting on the platform with doors closed. Eventually (some of) the doors open and I hop on. Not sure what train this is but it's clearly been delayed, and it's solid people inside. Nice.

BART Security Escorts still at Ashby, but fewer of them.

BART Booth Attendant is nowhere to be seen.

Tomorrow we vote on BART's $1 billion seismic retrofit bond.

No problems this morning. Train is on time, nice clean renovated car, only one spell of sitting motionless between stations (19th & 12th). Even got a seat at West Oakland.

Tom Bates was campaigning at Ashby again; wish I had a chance to stop and talk with him but had to sprint to catch my train.

5:22 pm Richmond train arrives at Embarcadero at 5:34 pm, after some vague announcements of “delay due to previous incidents” by a very tired sounding PA operator, and after a late Pittsburgh/Bay Point train limps through the station reeking of burning brake pads. Surprisingly, in spite of the delay, the Richmond train is no more crowded than usual. Which is to say, it is very—but not painfully—crowded.

Manage to hit the Ashby exit gates at the front of the pack. Good thing; only one exit gate is functioning and even that one breaks shortly after I exit. Hundreds of poor chumps left queued up, waiting impatiently to pay and get out.

Oh, and what's up with that cluster of “BART Security Escorts” that has appeared at Ashby in the past week? Never seen BART Security Escorts at Ashby before. Maybe they showed up with the time change and the earlier sunset. Or maybe BART rolled them out in hopes of getting a few more votes for their bond measure on November 5th. Let’s see if they’re still there on November 6th…