BART has been on the upswing lately. Ridership is up, and has been rising for years. Crime is way down, as new fare gates and more BART cops keep nefarious people off the trains. And the cars are new and very nice on the inside.
The problem is that despite these positive changes, BART faces a big structural problem. And advocates say it places multiple BART stations in the East Bay at risk of closure–including Orinda and Martinez’s stations.
The fundamental structure of work in the Bay Area has changed. Before the pandemic, 5-day weeks (or more) were the norm.
Although fully-remote work has largely ended, many Bay Area companies only require their employees to come into the office 3 days out of the week.
Monday and Friday, popular days to work from home, are pretty dead on BART. Couple that with the fact that many younger workers in the AI boom are choosing to live downtown instead of in the ‘burbs, and BART has far fewer people to serve…