I really appreciate that you recognized that BART isn't really a "metro" as it's usually defined but rather suburban rapid transit similar to Crossrail or the RER

BART is the system I grew up with. It's space-age qualities for the time are why I fell in love with trains and transit systems. The ride under the bay was always my favorite part. FAST! BART platforms have marks where the doors are and people line up at those marks. This is an important BART feature. The unusual thing about this that I haven't seen on other systems is that the flashing destination signs would always tell you if the approaching train was a 10-car or 8-car train so you know where to stand. Now, w the new 3 door cars, the destination signs will also indicate if the approaching train is 2-door or 3-door so you know which marks to line up behind. You can see it in this video on some of the station footage.

Nice, as an SF resident who just got off a BART train about an hour ago I'm a fan, but I really wish they would expand the network, fix connections to other transit, and most importantly have much more frequent service. Coming home tonight the trains were only running with a half hour headway, even on the trunk.

I've travelled to the Bay Area only once in the last 10 years, in 2019, a visit that I oriented around BART. This turned out to be an excellent idea: I flew into Oakland (instead of SFO), took the Coliseum-Airport shuttle, took BART and a short bus ride to a much cheaper stay in Oakland, and then used BART to maximize my exploration of the Bay Area over just a few days. If Bay Area politicians could orient more developments and amenities around it, the potential would be huge. I'm surprised they didn't take a hint from the 1989 earthquake, which I recall also damaged and caused permanent closure of several elevated highways, while BART's elevated guideways came out unscathed! (A good indicator for SkyTrain? 🤔)

A cool topic to cover would BARTS expansion to Vallejo, Fairfield, and Vacaville. It was a movement in the early 2000s but the movement really died when Hercules decided to get a fairy building instead of bart. Cool history and would be greatly needed! I would love to see this idea resurface or at least a shout of in a future bart video!

Great video. I worked on the first phase of the BART extensions in the early 1990’s and learned some interesting BART lore at the time. BART was originally designed in the 1960’s. At that time in the United States, optimism about technology was at its peak. The space race was in full swing, the country was going to the moon, and technology would be able to solve any technical problem. BART was envisioned as a fully automated system, and to compete with the growing popularity or the automobile, it would be designed with space age and futuristic trains with spacious cars, comfortable seats, and large and airy stations all to avoid the reputation at the time of the dark, dreary and crowded older subway and transit systems in cities such as New York, Chicago and Boston. Since downtown San Francisco was the economic engine at the time, and the perceived destination of most of the riders, it was designed so that all three branches on the East Bay would be able to take a direct train into San Francisco without switching trains, necessitating a very complicated route path through downtown Oakland and timing synchronization so that they could all go through the transbay team without backing each other up. Teething problems in its first few years, including a fire in 1979 in the transbay tube that killed a firefighter, sullied its reputation, but overall it’s been a great asset to the Bay Area and has really set the area apart from less transit friendly areas on the US West Coast such as Los Angeles and Seattle.

One note: You said that Caltrain doesn’t yet go downtown SF. I see what you mean as BART goes to the heart of downtown under market street, but I would call Caltrain’s 4th and King station downtown, and as someone who takes Caltrain into the city all the the time it’s much more common for me to go all the way in on Caltrain then transfer to muni as opposed to transferring to BART at Millbrae.

I love BART. I grew up on it, mostly riding between Berkeley, SF, and Oakland. My favorite part about it is the accessibility. Every single station is accessible with zero help required in the way of a driver putting down ramps or lifts. The train is flush enough with the platform that I roll right in, with a manual or power chair, and there is plenty of room inside a car to move to wherever i want, "disability area" or elsewhere. all this means l I have the freedom to ride public transit'': -without having to talk to anyone - without having to fear that equipment is broken down and I won't be able to ride (elevators do go down sometimes but it's usually very few and there's up-to-date elevator advisories both announced and on the app) -with total freedom to make last-minute changes of plan (bus and light rail drivers usually demand to know what stop you're getting off at) -without being tied down, which has made me very vulnerable to harassment on buses and is a very awkward process -without dealing with irritated passengers about how slow I'm making their transit trip It's great. I can simply get on any train at any door as soon as they open, hang out without having to do wheelchair securements, and leave when I want to, and I am much safer from abuse and assaut because of this good design.

I lived in the San Francisco area for 6 years and took BART almost every day. I go back to visit a few times a year, and I continue to take BART every time I visit.

1:55 A signaling system problem BART encountered in its early days was "ghost trains". Trains early in the morning would randomly disappear then reappear on the dispatcher's display at the Lake Merritt Control Center. A university professor investigated and found that fog caused a thin layer of rust to form on the track, preventing the signal's electrical voltage from shunting between the rails thru the wheel assembly as usual.

I rode BART for 3 days when visiting San Francisco (I stayed in Oakland) and loved it. I kinda wished trains were more frequent, but they were so spacious, comfortable and fast. The two-level stations under Market street were quite cool, too.

Awesome video! As a Concord (pronounced like "conquered") resident I use BART nearly every day to get to the City and the gym. Cool to see a video from an outside expert perspective about something I use so much without even thinking about it

Nice job. About that "redundant" extension to Santa Clara: For operational reasons (I'd imagine storage of the extra rolling stock they're going to need for serving downtown San Jose) there needs to be a railyard at the end of the line, and the only feasible place to put it would be in Santa Clara where there's room. It's also right by an existing Caltrain/Ace/Amtrak station and beside Santa Clara University, so you might as well put a BART station in there while you're at it. This will enable a single-seat journey between the East Bay and the university. Given the balkanized fare structure of incompatible transit systems in the Bay Area, this would be a significant convenience for riders and will result in more ridership. A BART-Caltrain change at Diridon would be a pain in the neck, inefficient, and likely pretty costly for riders, which would be a deterrent to ridership. A few years ago the VTA added a bike-pedestrian tunnel under the tracks at Santa Clara station, making it accessible from both sides. The area north of the tracks is underdeveloped now, but that is changing, and it's ripe for TOD. Now if they could just get a tunnel under the runways at San Jose Airport to connect the terminals to Santa Clara station, that'd be pretty amazing! In an ideal world the terminals would have been built on the south side of the runways and closer to the railway lines, but we are where we are.

BART is something Bay Area people love to hate but we all know when it does not run, the cities it runs through are greatly impacted! I do wonder what the Bay Area would be like if the original design was actually created, would we be better off or still in the same spot?

It's funny and insightful how you tie Montreal's REM to the lessons we learned from BART. There's actually a Montreal-Bay Area-Montreal bookend story there: Montreal's metro opened in advance of Expo '67 as the one of North America's first truly "modern" (post-WWII) subways. BART pushed some of this frontier technology farther with its unprecedented reliance on computers for operations, and enlisted some engineers fresh from Montreal in its design and roll-out work in the late 1960s and early 70s. I agree that BART is more like the RER or a commuter rail for the region, but it is truly a commuter-metro hybrid in that the section you highlight at 6:10, with BART's most intensely multi-layered service clear between West Oakland and Daly City. For riders traveling entirely between these two stations - the San Francisco segment - BART is truly a "metro" with close station spacings connected at high frequencies. Oakland-Berkeley-San Leandro get a less-frequent version of wider-spaced metro service between their stations (especially between MacArthur, West Oakland and Bay Fair), and the rest of the region gets a more typical commuter rail service.

If they ever made a second trans bay tunnel, I really hope they would build standard tracks as well. It would lead to more direct sfo to sac connections. It could also expand Caltrain on the east bay tracks etc.

Living in SF, it would be so much harder to get anywhere without Bart. Plus they go up to 80mph very often on their routes and they have a fairly frequent schedule now.

RMT - the bart trains in 1970 had brown cloth seats w/ wooden arm rests and wooden Dividers in the handicap seating near door entrance. the cars also had dim Flourecent lighting.

When San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge was built there was also the Interurban Electric Railway (IER) that ran a long with the Key System until July 26, 1941. BART is in the process of upgrading their rolling stock. The older rolling stock was the same rolling stock that was built when BART first opened on September 11 1973. It didn't help that the builder of that rolling stock went out of business. The fact that BART runs on a wide gage of 5' 6" allows for a larger passenger load and a smoother ride.

How about a video about the SF Muni light rail system?

I've never forgotten my first ride on BART in 1972 when it was brand new, and the Trans-bay tube wasn't even open yet. Compared to the rapid-transit systems I knew from Boston and New York, BART was impressively futuristic. Later that year, when I first visited Montreal and rode around on their fabulous Metro, I was even more impressed. At 16 years old this looked like the future, and it wouldn't be long before there were systems like these everywhere. My dream was to live close to a rapid-transit station. Fifty years later I am living that dream - alas, it is in Boston where their abysmally neglected system is often a nightmare!

I have to commend you on the pronunciation on all the cities listed in your video on BART. I will say Diridon sounded odd but even I probably mispronounce it. I live in Milpitas and have been waiting for BART to come to the South Bay (Silicon Valley) for decades. San Jose area built the light rail system while BART was expanding elsewhere. We finally got our connection to BART and Milpitas is a decent transit hub for BART, busses and light rail. peace!

i currently live in the bay (my station is 19th street which i love so much) and ive never taken bart all the way down to the end but its amazing how much land it truly covers and i could reach so many high demand areas using bart if i wanted to

Watching this, I'm teletransported back to the time of taking Hayward Bart to SF to work in 1991. I attended law school after work and rode back on BART to Hayward. So many memories came welling back watching this. I cut high school to take the very first excursion ride on BART back in 71 or 72. - BART handed out lapel buttons to commemorate that first trip whooshing through the tube to SF. wish I still had mine. It was all so space -ageish!

Growing up in the area, BART was my intro to a love of rail transit and the “Cassette Futurism”/late Space Age aesthetic. I find it interesting to compare and contrast BART with the DC Metro; they’re sister systems in many ways, but the architecture of BART seems bright and utopian compared to the more imposing and sober looking DC system. I wonder how much of that has to do with the difference in cultural attitudes when BART was designed in the mid-late 60’s vs DC a few years later. @RMTransit Given the recent opening of the Central Subway in SF, any chance there’s a Muni Metro video in the works?

I adore BART, it's clear many of the decision makers really care about creating a good system

Really Well Done. I rode the system back in the mid 80's and I thought it was very good then. Living on the east coast, I frequent the DC metro which is also nice. I have been on MARTA as well. But I do find MARTA not as polished as BART and DC. Back in the 80's I could see what BART was aiming for in the future. Nice to have a System with a thriving economy and tech companies with lots of money to toss to the public. Look at NYC, Philadelphia, Old infrastructure, lack of funds, needing a better tax base to make major improvements. Cheers!

I’d love to see that video on the second transbay tube. There’s been talk of making a new BART line from the Salesforce center down Geary then south on 19th. And I wonder if you could use *that* tunnel to eventually connect the Smart Trains in Marin to San Francisco. That plus HSR and Caltrain makes it a really interesting topic.

Video on second transbay tube would rule, also would be interested in hearing about the cancellation of bart to marin and if that could ever happen in the future

I wish I had your aurora and gusto to go out and visit the different rapid transit lines. You have got it all! I am pleased I watched this show about the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART). I learned more about this rapid transit railroad than I would have before.

I'm originally from Oakland CA. I reside in Modesto now for almost 6 years. I when I go back U can't wait to get to the Bart station. I grew up on Bart I didn't know the specifications and difficulty they had to go through. Overall nice transportation system 👌

Super interesting! I love the Bay so much. Can’t wait to make the move over. ❤️

It looks like an impressive system. I wish we had something like this in Manchester, England. UK. Unfortunately here all the money gets spent on London. There are some small light rail systems around the UK but were all built decades ago and have never been expanded or modernized. Really enjoyed watching your video. Thanks.

Currently living in the Bay Area and riding BART great vid

Thanks for taking about the Bart! 🎉 would love to see more

Didn't know that the original iconic rolling stock of this system was made by Rohr. No surprise to me, there were very space-age-ish in their train stuff, with ROMAG maglev PRT and the TACV air cushion hovertrain, which both have a dire resemblance to the BART rolling stock. It also explain the airliner type comfort seating, Rohr was an aerospace conglomerate before anything.

Back in the day, the Fremont (and lesser extent, the U City) BART Stations were my home stations. Back then Fremont was one of the terminus' and there was no Pleasanton or SFO Airport (circa 1990 to 1996).

The section of Interstate 280 it follows in SF is also on top of the original San Jose railway right-of-way, BART more or less follows that OG route up until Millbrae

Hii I really love your videos! I just wandering if u can make videos about cities in Africa like Niamey Niger or Lagos. I know there is not any kind of transit system over there but can u make a video like How these cities will be able to develop their public transport and how they will be able to cope with urban sprawl? Thank you!!

RMT - bart is Unique as its not a Metro system or Streetcar/ LRT like many other systems. it does not Directly interface w/ Street traffic like Muni Metro SF and LA Metro rail. bart is a HEAVY rail system that is Underground or Aboveground on elevated tracks or same grade as traffic in a Protected track. in the Transbay tunnel it can reach 80 mph or MORE. in the 70 - 80's bart would sometimes run 99+ mph , but this was reduced in later years as the system got older.

8:33 Actually, there's a Caltrain station in SoMa (South of Market street district) and it's very close to downtown SF.

Looking forward to when you do the MBTA!

I'd like to see more videos about BART!

Speaking of the eBart train, it reminded me of how identical it looked from the metro trains used in the Dubai Metro fully automated system. Oh. And can you do a video on Dubai Metro? The fully automated system is phenomenal.

I'd love if you had a look at the Adelaide O-Bahn and guided bus ways in general. Doesn't get enough attention.

BART! Good times. Its grown a lot even back in my day. I remember it used to END at my location, then they expanded it - riding on the new track FELT WEIRD - its like "I'm on air!" O__O; because well, it was new! Anyway - had a lot of rides on BART.

I live in the area and I enjoy the eBart extension as I don't live far from this station.

I was surprised by the proposed extension to Marin County to the north of SF that you mention at the beginning, on the 'historical' part, though not later on. I wonder if there were any real projects on that because crossing the Golden Gate is very, very hard. You can't go below, as you do to Oakland, because the GG is a very, very deep cut and with very strong currents, as the whole of the Bay comes in and out twice a day through that gap. You might build another bridge, but who would want to have another bridge obscuring the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. You can't reserve a couple of lanes on the GGB for BART since the bridge is already at capacity and the BART trains, being so wide, it would actually take most of the deck. The central lanes on the GGB are reassigned to either direction depending on traffic, allowing for 4-2, 3-3 or 2-4 splits (and even 2-2-2 with the central 2 left isolated, to avoid frontal collisions at night, when the risk of drunk drivers is higher and there is not much traffic anyway). Eventually, in a far away future, when Americans become less car-dependent, running the BART over the bridge might be possible, perhaps a single track in the middle (I am not sure the structure of the bridge would be able to handle two trains at once anyway), and two lanes on either side. Anyway, just wondering. Thanks.

Great video, I love SFs multi layered transit so fascinating. The only thing is the Richmond-SFO line runs to Millbrae and then the airport not vice versa

Would still love to see that track work in Oakland/ second trans bay tube video

I wanna see a video regarding why CalTrain and BART aren't combined, considering that if they were the same system there would be a complete circular rapid transit network around the bay.

Would love to see a video on the potential new transbay line!

If I'm not mistaken, the reason e-BART exists is for one obviouslty, cost, but also due to the fact that they've been trying to run it onto existing rail tracks, which would requires standard guage, and likely prevents the use of overhead wires due to the fun way american railroads operate. This hasn't happened though, and looks like it may not happen for some time so it leaves e-bart as a bit of an oddity.

Yes on more videos about Bart!!

i love the BART system it has so much potential to expand after the San Jose north connection to Milbrae but also the North and onto a North East loop, that then will really become the true bay area network and would take all those damn cars off the roads. Bart ridership can and should be fully utilised with just some network upgrades, something exciting for the future of San Fransisco and Oakland

Thank you

I really like the triangular head deisgn

As a native of the north bay (yes Sonoma County is apart of the Bay Area) the politics of SMART and the lost bart expansion is a really juicy story that lead to a mediocre train system in the north bay.

I'd love a video on the larger US light rail systems (Dallas, Houston, St Louis, etc)

I was SURPRISED when I came to the SF Bay Area and saw how MUCH LARGER and SPACIOUS the Subway trains are compared to those in Los Angeles. The Metro System trains (in LA) are INFERIORLY smaller than BART. The aisles are narrow (you have to turn sideways if you're a little too wide), and everyone is sitting much closer together. We're just PACKED IN THERE! I cannot even cross my legs while sitting in a front-facing seat. The back of the head of the person sitting in front of me, is just RIGHT THERE, no elbow room, no breathing room. (Don't cough) BART really is a step above the rest. Thanks for sharing

It would be great if BART can expand its system. A lot of big companies are in the Silicon Valley and Peninsula area, and i know a lot of workers who commute outside those areas to their jobs.

Always felt the face of the A and B series rolling stock resembled Blofeld's submersible from Diamonds Are Forever 😂

I wish you would add links or name the titles of your older related videos that you casually mention at times because they are hard to find without knowing the name of the video or having a link to it. For instance you mention you did a video on the 1st generation Washington DC metro cars but I have no idea how to find it lol.

What about Amtrak connections in the east bay? Used those a lot growing up as someone from the Sac valley

Make caltrain Bart. Put them under the same agency. Also build a dunbarton corridor Bart line with conventional rail like caltrain.

When are we gonna see a video on the MBTA

I’m curious. Despite the low frequency on BART, how well do other transit modes make up for it? Like Caltrain and Muni?

6:36 - Where can I find this video on Cross River Rail in Brisbane? I tried searching for both 'Brisbane' and 'Cross River Rail' on your channel, but couldn't find any video like that.

I feel the connection to SFO was unfortunate as it puts a kink in the line to Millbrae and forever adds inconsistences to service further down the peninsula if it were to ever happen. The BART station at SFO delivers you to the international terminal, but for any other terminal, passengers generally catch the AirTrain people mover system. As I understand it, the local consultants agree that the best way to do things would have been to keep the BART station along the rail line between San Bruno and Millbrae, and just extend AirTrain (which was designed in conjunction with and opened the same time as the BART extension) out to there instead. However, the pitch to voters was that the BART would go to SFO, so the final design ended up the way it is to keep to the letter of that promise.

My wish would be for them to extend the orange line north from Richmond to serve San Pablo, Pinole, Hercules, Rodeo and Crockett, to lighten the burden of the woefully insufficient WestCAT bus service. The yellow line also needs to be extended east to Oakley and Brentwood; there's a lot of people stranded out there, priced out of more nearby housing and poorly served by public transit.

i would love to see a video about the planned transbay tube and ca hsr

I think BART is ready to be upgraded into a completely automated transit Sky train of the BAY area. Several things to take place, a command center that monitors and operates the trains remotely using cameras and transmitters that communicate with computers to give instructions to each trains through transmitters positioned at the edge of the tracks and to install movable barriers to prevent people from falling into the tracks while they wait for oncoming trains. Take that a combination of technology used in Vancouver to make driverless trains a reality. JFK airport sky trains including one from Tokyo, Japan , it’s automated platform sky train and one from Seattle, Washington.

I find it quite funny that after 15 years of proposing and building a BART extension to San Jose, they only reach Milpitas. Average infrastructure project in California

A BART range metro-type thing for the GTHA (Or GGH?) would have been cool.

When will there be BART to Marin County?

Nice! I would like for you to make video on Muni "Metro"

Also it would be interesting if you could talk of a possible new proyect of a binational Monterrey/San Antonio and Train maya in the Yucatan peninsula

More BART, NY/CT Metro-North, and DC Metro videos please!😅

I'm watching this awhile ride bart right now lol.

leaving a comment for more videos about Bart, please and thank you

Bart also connects to Capital Corridor at Richmond Station

I didn't see it in the comments when mentioning connections to BART you didn't mention AMTRAK which shares the Richmond station with BART. I use that connection regularly.

Torontonian and current Bay Area resident. The bay could do so much good if they looked north the transit projects in Toronto would fit so well In SF.

Why, oh why, is a jazz-fusion-y Happy Birthday running as background music for the last few minutes of the video?

In the 90s and early 2000s you could print a pass that would give you discounted tickets for the local transit (at least for SF MUNI and Samtrans). Was sad when they discontinued that.

you forgot the Amtrak connection at Richmond station

The broad gauge portion of BART can even be handed over to an Indian company to long term maintenance, upgrades and availability of spare parts for both rolling stock as well as track & signal infrastructure as well as the station buildings themselves 🤔🤔🤔

15:04 happy birthday

Could you do a video on Rodalies in Barcelona, please?

I’ve seen at least 3 of the new cars being shipped on the interstate to the bay are.

BART has two major flaws: 1. Gauge. 5ft 6in. Prevents BART buying "standard passenger railcars.". so everything purchased is bespoke. 2. Single TransBay Tunnel is a limiting factor in the capacity of the whole system. BART needs a second TransBay tunnel via Alameda Island to provide a more resilient service. Allowing either tunnel to be closed for overnight maintenance.. Every year that this project is delayed adds billions to the ultimate cost.

I've been riding, designing, and building transit systems in the Bay Area, including BART, for close to 35 years. Here are some highlights about BART. 1. Based on evidence, one could conclude that BART was originally designed and built as a novelty space-age thing. (The 1st gen rolling stock resembled futuristic rides in Disneyland!) It was never intended as THE key commuter system in the Bay Area. This explains why there are built-in obstacle when it comes to upgrading the system. There is an urgent need to upgrade the system, as current ridership is exploding, and projected ridership will go nuclear. (Spending money to extend itself farther into the outskirts only invite more riders!) 2. The built-in obstacles are: (a) The length of the platform prevents BART from going beyond the current maximum of ten-car trains. (b) The height of the tunnels prevent BART from switching to double-decker trains. (c) The fact that all but one line merge into the Trans Bay Tube makes it nearly impossible to improve headways. (d) The existing right-of-way in certain corridors prevents BART from building parallel tracks as spur or for express service (e.g. separating SF workers living in Fremont, Dublin, Concord, Bay Pointe from SF workers living in Oakland by allowing them to bypass intermediate stations like Lake Merritt, Fruitvale, and Coliseum by using express service). 3. Before plans to extend into the South Bay, BART mainly served ONE center of work place during commute hours; namely, downtown San Francisco. In the morning hours, everyone is getting into SF. In the evening hours, everyone is getting out of SF. Building an extension into the South Bay does not solve the existing capacity problem into SF; it merely creates a second direction to have capacity problem. Looping the Bay wouldn't solve the existing capacity problem; building a second Trans Bay Tube would. 4. So BART management for the past ten years or so has been focusing on (a) improving headways by modernizing the train control system; (b) ensuring rolling stock is better maintained in order to always run ten-car trains by modernizing and expanding its maintenance facility in Hayward; (c) buying new rolling stock with more standing room, which translates to higher capacity. It's a crappy little commuter rail system we have, but we love it all the same.

While BART is a good system in many ways, its full potential was hampered from the beginning. During the 1960’s, San Jose was much smaller, and its economy had only recently began to shift away from their agricultural connections. San Jose political interests were concerned that a BART line between San Jose and San Francisco would inhibit local development by providing easy access to higher paying jobs in San Francisco. Even now that it has became known as Silicon Valley, there still is no BART line up the peninsula to San Francisco. Image being available to seamlessly circle the bay connecting the three major cities, three major airports, all the major sports stadiums, all the universities, and more, without one transfer. You can’t get to Stanford University on BART!?

BART is so fun to ride, but so expensive!

ay caramba

Fun Fact: You can see what some of the BART tunnels looked like just before it was opened to the public in the George Lucas movie THX1138, released in March 1971.

Space age!!! This person that did this article lives in a cocoon! I can bet this guy haven’t been out of this country.

Question : Is BART's slogan, "Ay! Caramba!"

Do Philly my friend! not much but there's at least a lot of history!