Can you guess why people aren't riding BART? New survey results here 

Anybody living in the Bay Area knows that BART is unsafe, and that there are peak hours and segments where crime and violence are very high. For the criminals, hoping onto BART is a prime feeding ground. They'll also follow passengers after they leave the station and attack them as they're getting into their cars or when they arrive home. Remember, the local courts handle assaults just like they do shoplifting. Criminals know that there are no repercussions.

Safety concerns are real. The last time I rode BART, I was almost robbed at the Powell St. Station. The robber knew that I knew what was up and he changed his mind at the last moment. Things would have ended really badly for him if he initiated the robbery of me and my girlfriend. He chose wisely.

BART is a homeless rollercoaster.

What a shock that people don't want to ride a system where you can be harassed, robbed, injured, or killed, and the people in charge -- paid a comfortable 6 figure salary -- do NOTHING about it.

You can’t let criminals and the mentally ill run rampant and still expect people to climb into a metal box with them. A free society depends on accountability and trust. And so does mass transit. Don’t be shocked at the results of bad choices.

I miss the 70's and 80's (and even the 90's) when I would ride BART and the thought of being assaulted and becoming a victim of crime would never cross my mind. I would take BART to work or school, to attend events, go to the airport and even shop. But the never ending thought of being robbed and assaulted plays a huge role in how I feel about taking public transit. Many of us are aware that a lot of people carry guns and knives and will not hesitate to use them against others.

BART has never done enough to make riders feel safe. Their safety measures are laughable. Hopefully, now they will get it.

I was just at the Concord Station a few hours ago, a man had to be restrained by medical personnel and Concord Police as well as BART police for attacking people on the train. A woman I talked to who as attacked said she doesn’t ride to the end of the line anymore because people lurk on the train and wait until everyone else is off and whoever is at the last stop gets attacked and viscously beaten.

I used to ride BART to S.F. in the 1990s, and even then I had safety concerns. During the commute hours it was O.K. but if I worked late, I'd see people on the trains that looked "questionable." Even kids were riding the trains trying to sell candy bars. With public behavior getting worse since Covid, I bet that there are more instances of questionable people riding the trains, looking for $$ hand-outs or looking to steal phones, etc from riders or just being mentally unbalanced -- none of these behaviors make people want to ride BART.

Last week when I was taking BART from Oakland to Berryessa, there was a guy tweaking in front of me, sitting down, rocking back and forth. Then, he decided to lay down on 2 sets of seats (so 4 seats total). Two people patrolling the cars (not officers) with BART clothing woke the guy up, asked if he needed any services and if he was okay. He said he was fine. I expected them to take him off since he obviously wasn't okay. They let him stay on and continue to tweak. This does not make me or anyone else feel more safe. Not the worst I've seen on BART (people smoking meth takes the cake on that), but it's low hanging fruit. Start checking people's tickets, and if they didn't pay kick them off. I'm sure the statistics show that most violence comes from those who did not pay to get on BART. Also, lower your prices. A 20% cut would do wonders.

Wait. What? BART is unsafe? I'm glad BART was able to finance a new survey to find out what everyone else in the Bay Area already knew.

I used to take BART to SF before COVID because I hated driving in SF, but now I feel that both SF and BART are dangerous. I rarely go to SF anymore, maybe only twice in the last three years. As for BART, I don't even bother using it anymore. I used to ride it to get to SF, Berkeley, Oakland Airport, and SF Airport. Even before the pandemic, there were always sketchy people on BART or at the BART stations.

My little brother rode the BART just a couple months ago to SFSU. A few gang members jumped on the bus at Fruitvale and blew smoke at my brother's face. That's when we knew - we'd never ride BART again.

I commuted on the BART for 20 years (I'm now retired). It is both unsafe & unclean, but even if it were there's another issue. In my experience, and this is not an exaggeration, the BART was actually on time about once every two years. If you had travel connections to make, think about that - the trains were never on time. BART has terrible service, the trains and stations are dirty, riders have to deal with homeless insane drug addicts and gang members, they can't even maintain their own schedules, they cut maintenance and custodial personnel while giving the top executives bonuses and raises (one of the executives at BART had no actual job duties). All the time they have posters in the cars that say "Voted #1 transit agency". Voted by who? Guess they voted for themself, and were the only one in the contest. If they go out of business it isn't because of the riders, it will be because of bad management.

In January of this year, a friend and I took a cab from Sausalito to Civic Center BART station in SF. There are some one-way roads around the station. The driver had to drop us a block away from the entrance. It was about 8 PM. What I saw was unthinkable till then - about 200 drug addicts were on the pavement. A drug peddler approached me nonchalantly and wanted to sell me something. They seemed to mind their own business, but the scene was straight out of a horror movie for me. We did not see a single cop.

The last time I was on Bart was more than fifteen YEARS ago. There I was witness to an armed robbery it was the scariest thing I had experienced. We all jumped down on the floor with my mother covering me. After that experience, we knew we would never set foot on BART again. City of San Francisco Police Department does not keep us safe they cater to the criminals. IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE!

1) I was returning from a trip with heavy luggage and went to the elevator. When the door opened, a person was standing in the cab and would not exit the cab. With reservation, I entered the cab with my luggage. It was one of the BART survey takers but he never identified himself. Would you want to be in a tight enclosed slow moving elevator with someone ill-intentioned? 2) Once I got to the platform. a man with clear mental issues was standing in front of a mother with two babies in a stroller. He was speaking incoherently to her and the mother was speaking to the person in a what to not 'trigger him'. John Grubb: Are you suggesting people like this mother should have to deal with people in the subway system with mental health issues? I saw this same person on the surface wandering around and I avoided him when he was beckoning. BART (like the Mayor) has no solution to deal with the homeless and mentally challenged people who congregate around public transit stations. Decades of not dealing with this problem is having a long-term impact on consumers. No campaign will change this until you get at the root cause.

Allow me to suggest what's happening is more middle-class (i.e. professionals, managers) work remotely, which gets people off the freeways. As the freeways become accessible, people prefer to drive instead of riding BART, and this causes a shift from BART to freeways. It's not directly about remote workers abandoning BART as much as it taking pressure of all modes of transportation. With the pressure off the choice is no longer between "90 min driving or 45 on BART" - it's 45 min driving or 45 min on BART, and it's no surprise people would rather sit in their nice, quiet comfy car seat listening to the radio instead of wondering if that screaming lunatic at the end of the car staring people down is actually dangerous.

During covid, 50 youth and or young adults jumped on a Bart train from an Oakland stop, flooded the train, and robbed everyone. Not sure if anyone was beaten up, but all the riders were completely helpless. Was terrifying.

The same politicians who make the transit unsafe are the same who wants to use transit to save the Earth! 🤣

BART's "loss of ridership" is propelled by all those fare evaders jumping the gates. You don't count as a rider if you deliberately don't pay your fare share. Time to electrify those out-of-date BART fare gates that are long overdue for replacement so that those fare evaders can learn firsthand (literally, upon placing their hands on multiple fare gates in order to jump over them) how "electrifying" an experience riding BART really is!

As a out of state visitor who has taken BART over the last 40 years..... I can tell you this. No, two years ago I did feel unsafe on the BART train. Homeless people were riding the train more. In addition the restrooms seemed to always be out of order and there were no station agents to be found. I had to call BART police to get me out of a station because my card got demagnetized. This never happened before. The stations and trains looked filthy which I never found it that way in the past.

I stopped riding for safety. Even time I rode I was always looking over my shoulder worried I would get pushed into the tracks by a crazy or get mugged. And after watching the NY incident… no one’s going to come to your aid cuz criminals have all the rights these days

BART should put real doors at the entrance of the station to avoid people from jumping above the fence. And then those people are the one creating problems, not the one who paid their ride.

I think low ridership is due to a mix of different factors, main reasons are: people working from home, cost, health and safety concerns. For me, I'm never going back to bart. I got tired of the fare hikes, parking fees, full trains, full parking, safety issues. I started doing casual carpool before the pandemic but that meant I still ride bart going back to the east bay. During the pandemic I learned how to ride a motorcycle and that got me free of bart completely. Shorter commute time even in heavy traffic, and much lower daily cost.

A few years ago as a new employed worker going downtown, I saw a guy with a knife chase off the car a guy who had just asked him to please clear a row of seats he was sleeping on during rush hour. Never saw what happened after that, but the poor man in a suit ran for his life to get away. Not a good introduction to public transit for a young guy to see.

Bart is history. People are leaving San Fran and the Bay Area thanks to oppressive laws and California taxation, drug addiction and homelessness.

BART is a mental institution on rails 😩😩😩

From my experience, BART in the East Bay is a lot less sketchy than one would expect given the media coverage these days, but passing through San Francisco the system seems to be facing many of the same problems as the city above. Yes, there are people "sleeping" in the back of the train who are clearly under the influence of something, but if you ask me, we need to crack down on behaviors which actually create a significant nuisance / danger for other riders (e.g. threatening everyone with a meat cleaver) while not worrying about someone drinking coffee or just minding their own business.

The exorbitant pricing and it’s extremely dangerous ?

I remember riding Bart in the late 70s as a teen and it seemed futuristic, very clean and overall good time. I like when you are headed to sf from Oakland the train gets ready to go under the bay and it feels like you are going under water love it. 🎉

The funny thing is that they never show on TV what riders have to go thru ! I wish someone from a news Chanel will make a video on riding Bart to work and show it for what it is. Unsafe , dirty , outdated , scary

Has to be hurting tourism too. Some people do a lot of research on a city's train, bus, and light rail systems before they decide on where to go for a vacation.

The problems on BART are also the problems the SF Bay Area is experiencing. As the Survey Says, safety is #1. Ridership before the pandemic also included tourists and convention/conference attendees. We also have much less of those two groups. BART is essential in our infrastructure.

Well, I think it's hard to reduce your carbon footprint when you're afraid of using public transport. Sounds like BART needs a lot more transit cops roaming through the cars; but the management seems to have a hard time understanding that or implementing that. The management probably avoids riding BART like the plague.

Public transport across CA is failing as a whole. They are simply mobile homeless shelters where mental health crises and hard drug use complete with OD occurrences are frequent.

Additional problems with Bart is excessive employee pay, retirement benefits and pensions. Bart is a joke, it’s not safe. And the trains are ancient compared to the transportation trains in Europe.

The system is corrupt to the core & until this problem is addressed, then things are only going to get worse. Bart is dangerous.

I am pretty sure this 'survey' was designed by the geniuses that run the BART. One thing to note is that people like me who HAD to use the BART are long gone from California. What a glorious feeling that was!

It is also incredibly unreliable. They cancel trains when ridership is down, why would people continue to pay for that, risk your safety & then be inconvenienced by all these cancelled trains passing you by.

Based on that survey I'll bet most bart riders would prefer a train system like that of Dubai. Dubai's train system is devoid of the homeless, mentally ill...and the filfth. You won't find officers on the fully automated system there though...but seeing signs for fines for chewing gum it may be a tad too much for us to swallow. But the ejection of riders for violating passenger conduct is something I'd be down for. That alone would potentially garner more ridership if it was enforced.

Pubic transit is dangerous nowadays everywhere in the US with violent people cruisin' for a bruisin' etc. so getting into an altercation is a real possibility.

We lived at Avalon Dublin station when it opened. It slowly filled with section 8 from Oakland and all had free BART passes. I was the only one paying. It turned into a 24 hour madhouse because nobody worked except us. Failure of society.

I used to ride BART daily when I lived in the city from 1990 to 2001. I never felt unsafe or threatened, and the trains were reasonably clean. What the H happened? 🙁

I snapped at an addict for openly "shooting-up" in front of a group of elderly passengers. He exclaimed BART was the SAFEST PLACE for this ILLICIT activity: free, warm, comfortable, never to be ejected and fairly quick assistance should he OD!

I think one of the problems isn't just inside Bart but when you ride Bart and look out the windows and what you see is the deterioration of society and that scares people so much thst when you ride Bart you have to see what's happening that might be enough to not ride Bart in and of itself

BART is insanely expensive. In NYC and LA the fare is under $3 and you can take the metros to anywhere in the system and they’re just as extensive as BART.

Not just if they FEEL safe, but that they ARE safe.

Lots of people have moved away from the Bay Area. Big Tech often brought in a lot of contractors or had people on sponsor visas who've also had to move back. Downtown SF needs to bounce back or else this isn't going to get better.

Reading through these comments is alarming. Back in the late eighties through the early 2000's BART was pretty dang good. The infrastructure is solid just need to make it safe.

Typical Bart. Wasting time, money, and effort on a survey when the facts are glaring and in front of their faces. Fare evasion is the root cause. Most problem-causers do not pay their fare. Fix one and the other will resolve itself. Maybe they deserve to fail for doing everything BUT the solution.

I might be going way out on a limb with this one guys but I’m gonna say it’s because the overwhelming majority have noticed… patterns.

We had a choice to ride the bart from the airport to the cruise terminal but because of safety concerns, we eventually decided to uber.

Safety is an issue. People smoke pot and it’s not being stopped. But safety is a concern everywhere. It’s not just the Bart. The freeways aren’t safe either.

I could've told you that safety is the #1 reason without doing that survey at all, it's a no brainer. I don't understand these politicians or government officials who totally lack common sense.

Focus on the massive fare evasion. That would be a good place to start if you want to increase revenue.

As somebody who used to make a living robbing people on BART this is very frustrating. Most of the people riding these days aren't worth stealing from. And before you call me a drug addict, no I don't do drugs. I don't even drink or smoke. Robbing people is a full time job and if ridership never returns to normal I don't know what I will do.

working from home collapsed the whole Bay Area especially SF. no reason to risk you life on a dangerous thing like Bart

It’s not just the Bart trains, it’s the Bart station. It’s a homeless hotel. I see them rummaging through trash by tipping and emptying out the trash bags, doing god knows what in the bathrooms and outside of the bathrooms, cause a disturbance that constantly delays Bart, I only ride bart out of necessity. It’s never going to be back to what it was because SF is no longer the draw it once was.

These overpaid Bart officials know they job is on the line, their gravy train is over. Did they need a study to figure out Bart is too danagerous?

I recently rode BART for the first time in _decades._ It was a lousy experience. I heard metal on metal screeching all the way from SFO to downtown. The cars are still the ones from 1973, right?

BART wants to blame the low ridership on the pandemic and working from home. Ridership was on the decline before 2020. Safety was #1. People allowed to jump gates, live on the trains, beg for money, assaults and murders. Let's add less than helpful, but over-compensated station agents and police. But the real blow came during the pandemic. Service workers still had to go to work. My son worked security at 5th & Townsend swing shift. He was off at 11:00pm and BART cut service at 9pm. He would have to walk to the transit station or VanNess & Market to take a bus back over the bridge to Oakland. Because of social distancing , only a few people could get on the bus at a time. He would arrive at home around 3am. I started driving from Richmond to SF to pick him up and then SF to Oakland and back to Richmond. Five days a week 60 miles roundtrip. That is what was done to folks who relied on BART and AC Transit. AC tried to adjust for pandemic traffic, but BART just found more reasons to cut service that affected those who were still physically going to work at airports, security, hospitals, restaurants, etc. After a year of mom-transit, he learned to drive and bought a car. This is what mis-management does. BART and AC Transit need to join forces, reduce the number of overpaid directors, hiring people with transit backgrounds for future planning.

I don't even have to watch the video I already know it's still homeless and it's dangerous.

I love how they try to play it off like they are improving safety. They claim to have more Bart police, but the odds of me seeing one is extremely rare if at all.

During the pandemic, San Francisco Bay Area enforced a total lock down which encouraged a work-from-home culture. The lack of commuter and demand for office space is a natural unintended consequence that everyone foresaw except those who encouraged such lockdown policy.

Thanks to the Supreme Court's Bruen decision, all riders should apply for a gun carry permit, and of course, then carry a gun on BART. Remember: More legally carried guns always means more safety, and less crime.

There is one transportation service in the Bay Area that does not appear to have the problems that Bart and some bus services have. That would be the ferry services.

If people think they will be targeted by criminals while on Bart, then people will not ride. Get tough on crime (local and state government) things might turn around.

I was waiting at 1 o’clock in the morning at the end of the line on the inside of the gate in the bar. Police told me to leave the bart because they were closed and stand outside with all the homeless people. I refused because my Uber ride was going to be there within five minutes. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible! Bart is horrible horrible. Like I said, the only time you see Bart police is when the rounding up the homeless people all they do is sit in their little huts and do nothing. They should not be paid, but they’re being paid. Also Barth Board of Directors needs to be fired for the unethical use of money employees getting paid and not even showing up for work! Bart needs to be overhauled have a whole new Board of Directors and have ethical behavior like I said I cannot wait till I never have to ride that stupid horrible drug infested bad customer service BART train again.

I just can’t understand how the Bart government can be so clueless.. there should be officers on Bart. There shouldnt be homeless and mentally ill sleeping on the Bart. I don’t get it why they can’t understand that the Bart isn’t safe feeling. I’m a man and even I don’t feel safe.

The policy makers build public transit, but then make sure violence on public transit has as few consequences as possible. They end up with rolling arenas where you might end up on the card.

Dirty, dangerous (I know from first-hand experience), last train ends too early, trains can take up to 20 minutes, not as many lines/stops which oftentimes makes driving easier...I could go on.

I think it’s the opposite, more passengers isn’t going to benefit the area one bit. You need to give them a good reason to go there in the first place other than work. With a lot of stores closing in sf, why even bother going ?

Anyone surprised? I'm a huge fan of trains, always used SFO-Market BART (sorry Uber) despite the fact how dumpy, dangerous and hard-to-get-to (tap in tap put anyone???). Last 12 months were a pure downhill with drugs, homelessness and unreliable service. It feels like you will have to close the shop and reinvent from scratch

If events like Oscar Robertson didn't happen in the first place we would have more trust, respect and law and order. We wouldn't need to lean into all these alternate programs. Law enforcement needs to go harder but also "righter".

Last time I was on BART this kid with a skateboard got in my face and said, "EAT MY SHORTS!" and then laughed in my face. I was so embarassed. I said, "I'm in danger." Then I started crying and my girlfriend broke up with me and rode away on the skateboard with him.

When i went home recently i noticed people openly using drugs , riding the bart from sfo_ south bay, etc its wild

Does the survey include the fare evaders in their results? If they made sure that only people that have paid or have an exemption to ride BART are on the system it will be in my opinion a safe system, it is that easy.....ALL of the problem is the riders that did not pay to ride, and you can watch them enter and leave without any interaction from anybody. SIMPLE SIMPLE SIMPLE !

There needs to be a nationwide ban on anyone with a violent conviction from riding any public transportation.

Have any of the BART Board of Directors been laid off due to the decrease in ridership and revenue? If not, why not?

Even BART employees don’t want to use the system.

I saw a woman get her phone stolen because she didn’t give money to a homeless woman on the bart. A group riders and I had to go save her.

In my opition, cut the bart opearating hours to save cost. It is too dangerous outside rush hours. During those time people will choose other transportations anyway.

interesting how a transit agency has an entirely dedicated police force that prior to the story never actually rode on the trains they are paid to police...wow

Bart, like Liberals will never address the elephant in the room. High cost of gasoline keeping workers at home. Violence on the cars. Bart management whether that be upper or lower is incompetent. As an employee of the company safety for employees sucks too. We also encounter erratic behavior from the public at our work yards and I'm not even a Station Agent, T.O., or Utility person. Talking about the hidden safety issues.

You can't make everyone do what you want to do BART.

Did they survey why the sun rises in the east and sunsets in the west? Why water is wet🤷‍♂️?

Will BART let riders bring their own tools for self protection? Nope, they want riders to depend on the nanny state while not protecting the riders.

Because they value their life

BART gets a huge amount of $$ from tax payers as a result they could carless about their customers. The solution is to stop giving taxpayer money to BART

Lol I am giving up on dates in SF simply because bart is crappy - I have been to so many SF dates before pandemic because I worked in SF but now I work remotely, I will not bart to go on my dates unless I have to go for work (Or that date is promising lol), so I gave up a lot of opportunities but my life is more important than dating lmao. I don't want to get injured by a random stranger or start a fight. I took bart once during the pandemic after sleeping over at my date's place and I got sick the next day. I saw a goddam homeless wondering around different train, so in order for me to take bart again, I have to make sure there is no stabbing, most people wearing masks, and no homeless dirty thugs. Though there is no mask required but a lot of these homeless does not even have the vaccine, so they can still spread covid.

Bro I can 100% tell if someone is nodding off or if they’re smoking dope under a coat. There needs to be an attendant to kick these fools out the BART station or something

Munich subway trains ran everywhere at 3 minute intervals. You never had to walk far or wait long. BART was the opposite

Many Major cities have the same problem , Not just San Francisco All bus systems after rush hour are just free transportation for homeless and criminals The worst part is the US is dictating to other countries what to do , While our House is burning Freaking embarrassing !!!!!

BART has demonstrated for decades that it's riders are a low concern. They won't be able to undue that no matter how many billion dollar bond issues they try and float.

I’ll be so sad if BART shuts down. We’ll never know what we lost until it’s gone.

Apparently haven’t seen how filthy it is when some kind of not stable characters are casting passengers trying to ride bar station whether that’s on the outside of BART station trying to get in or in the BART station itself And when riders witness some violent crimes, it doesn’t just affect the person the violence was against it affects everybody who witnessed it, and spreading the word that the city does nothing about violent crimes . Are the cities locks hands off policy on a certain group of individuals has caused this problem? Now it is too late to repair the damage

Do not let homeless or addicts into BART, do not let them loiter inside the station, have police Inside BART train, Inside the facility, and outside the facility. Only then, will passengers feel safe.

the problem is lots of people want to fare evade

Even if riders feel physical safety in the future the fares will scare the chit out of them.