BART experienced two major service disruptions in just four days, highlighting growing concerns about the Bay Area's aging transit infrastructure at a critical moment for the agency's future. Bay Area Rapid Transit service between Oakland and San Francisco resumed Thursday morning following an equipment issue. But this wasn't the first problem—just days earlier, an RV fire damaged cables near West Oakland Station that are essential for communication and safe train operations inside the Transbay Tube.
The Thursday outage hit hard during morning commute hours. A single "supervisory network card" at a data center near Lake Merritt failed, knocking out routing control and disabling the agency's public announcement system. Even BART board members got caught in the chaos—one board member was delayed getting to an agency meeting after trains stopped running through the Transbay Tube for nearly an hour. The irony wasn't lost on leadership. GM Bob Powers said his goal had been "no drama" after Sunday's meltdown, but "We failed on that."
These outages arrive at the worst possible time. The BART Board of Directors adopted an Alternative Service Plan outlining specific budget balancing details to solve a $367M deficit, which includes service cuts, station closures, fare increases, a 40% reduction in system support services, and laying off 1,200 employees. The back-to-back disruptions come at a precarious moment for the transit agency, which is seeking voter approval of a regional sales tax that would raise funds to close a structural budget deficit exceeding $350 million, with BART warning that if the measure doesn't pass, it could shutter as many as 15 stations by July 2027. The BART Board of Directors voted Thursday to adopt a revised service plan that, if a regional sales tax measure fails in November, would delay any station closures until July 2027, but riders could still face service cuts, higher fares, and station closures are still on the table.
For now, BART is working on a "long-term fix" for the network card issue. Whether that fix—and the November ballot measure—will be enough to stabilize the system remains an open question.